topic Re: Citi Custom Cash & Venmo Credit Card Denied in Credit Card Applications

Citi Custom Cash & Venmo Credit Card Denied

SEAlifer — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 21:25:16 GMT

Just got my refi funded so I was excited to try for another 0% APR card. Sadly the joy of approval is only equaled by the dejected feeling of rejection. Here are my DPs:

- 13 inquiries, the last CC one was from 2/17/21, 3 in the last month for my mortgage refinance

- 14% utilization

- 8 current cards

- Income $140K

Shot my shot for the Citi Custom Cash and got denied. Venmo has been emailing me like crazy and showing the "apply now" pop up whenever I used it so I figured I'd have better chances with them. No luck there either. But it's all good. I think in Feb-2022 I'm eligible to get another SUB at Wells Fargo with the Active Cash so I'll pay down my balances, let my account age a bit more and try again then.

Re: Citi Custom Cash & Venmo Credit Card Denied

CreditCuriosity — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 21:29:25 GMT

Interesting. Reasons for denial from Citi can call automated # and listen to reasons. Might be worth a recon depending. If inquiries can possibly argue that on recon for mortgage.

Re: Citi Custom Cash & Venmo Credit Card Denied

SEAlifer — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 21:46:58 GMT

@CreditCuriosity wrote:
Interesting. Reasons for denial from Citi can call automated # and listen to reasons. Might be worth a recon depending. If inquiries can possibly argue that on recon for mortgage.

Thanks for this suggestion. I figured it couldn't hurt so I did just call. They told me to await my letter in the mail and that was all.

Re: Citi Custom Cash & Venmo Credit Card Denied

CreditCuriosity — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 21:49:35 GMT

Sure it was a denial or 7-10 day or say denied?

This # I believe puts you on with a live person: Citi: 800-695-5171

Re: Citi Custom Cash & Venmo Credit Card Denied

SEAlifer — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 21:50:29 GMT

@CreditCuriosity wrote:
Sure it was a denial or 7-10 day or say denied?

He said denial and that I'd get the letter in the mail in 7-10 days, I believe. That is the number I called and I spoke to a live person.

Re: Citi Custom Cash & Venmo Credit Card Denied

CreditCuriosity — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 21:58:56 GMT

Strange as they will usually say the reasons.

Re: Citi Custom Cash & Venmo Credit Card Denied

SEAlifer — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 22:05:54 GMT

@CreditCuriosity wrote:
Strange as they will usually say the reasons.

Not this time. I wasn't pressuring him and he wasn't forthcoming. I'll just app again when I'm at or above 800 with very low utilization.

Re: Citi Custom Cash & Venmo Credit Card Denied

Taurus22 — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 05:16:04 GMT

Aww man. Sorry about the denials, I hate seeing people get stung. You seem to have a positive demeanor about though. From the DP's I've read about the sensitivity of the Citi CC (past 6 months) it seems like the Refi hits in the past month might have triggered their spidey-sense.

Re: Citi Custom Cash & Venmo Credit Card Denied

SEAlifer — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 16:29:12 GMT

@Taurus22 wrote:
Aww man. Sorry about the denials, I hate seeing people get stung. You seem to have a positive demeanor about though. From the DP's I've read about the sensitivity of the Citi CC (past 6 months) it seems like the Refi hits in the past month might have triggered their spidey-sense.

Oh yeah, I am interested to see the denial letter but I'm cool with the cards I have now. They might think I did a cash-out refinance instead just refinancing the outstanding balance which is what happened? I totally thought I'd qualify because I've had no problem getting cards for the past year and a half but each bank has its own logic and for whatever reason my profile just didn't match up with their credit risk criteria. It's good to be humbled every once in a while

Re: Citi Custom Cash & Venmo Credit Card Denied

zerofire — Sat, 14 Aug 2021 16:13:37 GMT

@SEAlifer wrote:
Just got my refi funded so I was excited to try for another 0% APR card. Sadly the joy of approval is only equaled by the dejected feeling of rejection. Here are my DPs:

- 13 inquiries, the last CC one was from 2/17/21, 3 in the last month for my mortgage refinance
- 14% utilization
- 8 current cards
- Income $140K

Shot my shot for the Citi Custom Cash and got denied. Venmo has been emailing me like crazy and showing the "apply now" pop up whenever I used it so I figured I'd have better chances with them. No luck there either. But it's all good. I think in Feb-2022 I'm eligible to get another SUB at Wells Fargo with the Active Cash so I'll pay down my balances, let my account age a bit more and try again then.

The good news is that you tried. The bad news is that you need to try harder by getting your denial letters and seeing if you can recon anything.

Now as to perhaps why you got denials. First 3 HPs is a bit much for many banks if they are fresh. My guess is that you put in an app and you got instant response from a computer. Another thing is that Mortgages usually will need about 30 to 60 days to settle before a credit card company will think of giving some rotating lines. This is because you just asked for a massive loan and they will not be comfortable to just add more. Also you can have both mortgages listed right now as open especially if the companies are different.

Next you also have issues on your report. You want HPs in the form of 6/12/24 months for each reporting agency. I can safely say with 13 on one Citi will not approve as they want 4-6 max in 6 months. Citi will definitely manually count and not combine for approval purposes. Synchrony Bank though probably freaked due to HPs as well but it was the recent mortgage ones that really nailed them. They do not like lending in the middle of a pandemic to someone that looks desperate. Lastly I would recommend the garden for the next year or two as otherwise your HPs will also scare Wells Fargo. I had high 780s and good report and they gave me a denial letter as well for the Wells Fargo Propel. Not sure how I could have had a chance for approval with them.

Re: Citi Custom Cash & Venmo Credit Card Denied

SEAlifer — Thu, 02 Sep 2021 19:59:02 GMT

Little post-script to this post. Both Venmo/Synchrony and Citi took my TransUnion score which is of course my lowest score at 730 vs 749 for Experian and 802 for Equifax. It confounds me that there can be a 70 POINT (!!!!!!!!!) difference between two scores for the same person. TU shows 1 collection from 2017 which was ~$300 and was paid off in Feb-2018 which Experian and Equifax don't but I guess that makes me SO MUCH MORE less trustworthy. I didn't get an official denial letter from Venmo but from Citi they said too many recent inquiries and too many Authorized User accounts. That's weird because my partner is an AU on one of mine and vice versa and that's it.

So yeah, credit reports and scores are the strangest thing ever. Trying to make sense of them is a fool's errand.