topic Re: Advice after BK in Bankruptcy

Advice after BK

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 18:22:58 GMT

I filed Chapter 7 BK this year because of Covid, Layoffs and illness that hindered me from paying all my debt. So 2 major questions is...

What steps do I take to rebuild?

Can I ever get a unsecured credit card with a nice credit limit again?

Thanks any advice or wisdom would be greatly appreciated!

Re: Advice after BK

jayhawk05 — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 18:47:07 GMT

Hello and welcome! First thing I would recommend is checking all three credit reports to ensure everything is reporting accurate post discharge.

As far as credit cards go, here are the ones I was approved for. I filed CH7 in 3/21 and it was discharged 6/21.

6/2021 - Mission Lane - $1,000 limit

8/2021 - Capital One Quicksilver (upgraded from Platinum, 2/22) - $300 limit

8/2021 - Mercury - $1,100 limit (increasedfrom $750 in 12/21)

1/22 - Kohls - $300 limit

2/22 - PenFed Power Cash - $5,000 limit

2/22 - Discover Cash Back - $2,000 limit

Discover, Capital One and others have prequal tools. I'd stay away from Credit One, as they are predatory.

good luck!

Re: Advice after BK

Cowboys4Life — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 18:54:52 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I filed Chapter 7 BK this year because of Covid, Layoffs and illness that hindered me from paying all my debt. So 2 major questions is...
What steps do I take to rebuild?

Can I ever get a unsecured credit card with a nice credit limit again?

Thanks any advice or wisdom would be greatly appreciated!

Yes you will recover. I felt the same way. I filed 1/2018 discharged 5/2018. I don't remember exact dates opened but within late 2018 I had Discover $750 (unsecured but not IIB) and Cap1 $500 (2 cards IIB). Today I have the following:

Mortgage! Bought home using VA loan 3/2020

2021 bought 11/2019

Cap1 QS x 2 cards (PC on one card to QS for CB) total $10k CL as another surprise I found out last week Cap1 deleted the 2 old defaulted IIB accounts on their own. They must have been reading my mind because I was going to do a GW deletion attempt when it happened.

Discover $5k

Amazon Prime $2k

BestBuy store card $2k

Dell $4k

You can and will rebuild. Just have patience and manage your debt so you don't end up in trouble again. I am now in the other camp where sometimes I am afraid to spend money.

Re: Advice after BK

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 18:56:39 GMT

APPRECIATE U! I obviously have a long road ahead of me. I have a question.. how did u get it discharged so quickly. I was told I have to wait 7-10 years.

Re: Advice after BK

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 18:58:17 GMT

@Cowboys4Life Thanks!

Re: Advice after BK

dragontears — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 19:00:07 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
APPRECIATE U! I obviously have a long road ahead of me. I have a question.. how did u get it discharged so quickly. I was told I have to wait 7-10 years.

Discharged is when your BK is "closed" and no way does it take 7-10 years, you are confusing it with Reporting time frame

Reporting of the BK is 10 years for a 7 and 7 years for a BK13.

Re: Advice after BK

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 20:40:53 GMT

@dragontears @thank you for that tip

Re: Advice after BK

FireMedic1 — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 22:30:30 GMT

@AnonymousWho got burned in your BK? This will help which way to turn.

Re: Advice after BK

MileHigh96 — Wed, 02 Mar 2022 15:12:48 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I filed Chapter 7 BK this year because of Covid, Layoffs and illness that hindered me from paying all my debt. So 2 major questions is...
What steps do I take to rebuild?

Can I ever get a unsecured credit card with a nice credit limit again?

Thanks any advice or wisdom would be greatly appreciated!

You can DEFINITELY get an unsecured card with a decent limit again. First things I would do is, as was already mentioned, pull your credit reports and make sure everything looks right. Second, you should take a look at your FICO scores. not sure if myFICO offers a free trial, but credit.com offers a one week free trial and there you can see every single one of your FICO scores. Seeing those will also give you an idea with what kind of rebuild you will need to start with. The minimum of what you need to get the most out of your FICO scoring during your rebuild is 3 revolving accounts and one installment loan of any kind.

I had a reaffirmed auto loan out of the gate after my BK7 was discharged, so maybe that helped my scores to start, but in the 30 days after my discharge, I was approved for Mission Lane ($1,000 CL), Ollo ($1,500 CL), and Mercury ($3,000 CL), all unsecured. And then the big one was 4 months after discharge, I got approved for a PenFed card with a $6,000 CL which made me very happy. So it can definitely be done. If you didn't burn them in your BK7, I would definitely open a saving account with PenFed to get in the door, because that's how you get your start with them. They are very BK friendly to people that never burned them, but of course your odds of approval will vary as everyone's file is different. And as mentioned too, stay away from places like Credit One unless you have absolutely no choice, there are A LOT of predatory lenders out there waiting to take advantage of people and the will "fee" you to death.

But keep your chin up, you can defnitely recover. Good luck on your rebuild!

Re: Advice after BK

Anonymous — Wed, 02 Mar 2022 17:10:36 GMT

Chase Freedom and Capital One (Platinum and Silver) 😡 I loved both of those. Im curious once I rebound if I can ever apply for another Chase again. @FireMedic1

@MileHigh96

Re: Advice after BK

MileHigh96 — Wed, 02 Mar 2022 17:16:42 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Chase Freedom and Capital One (Platinum and Silver) 😡 I loved both of those. Im curious once I rebound if I can ever apply for another Chase again. @FireMedic1
@MileHigh96

Chase might be a no-go, but I don't have any experience with them, so I don't know for sure. CapOne will let you apply for a card 12 months after discharge if they were burned, so you can definitely get back in with them, you just need to wait that one out.

Re: Advice after BK

dragontears — Wed, 02 Mar 2022 17:55:10 GMT

@MileHigh96 wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Chase Freedom and Capital One (Platinum and Silver) 😡 I loved both of those. Im curious once I rebound if I can ever apply for another Chase again. @FireMedic1
@MileHigh96
Chase might be a no-go, but I don't have any experience with them, so I don't know for sure. CapOne will let you apply for a card 12 months after discharge if they were burned, so you can definitely get back in with them, you just need to wait that one out.

Forget Chase, they auto deny people with BK when they were not included in a BK. If you included them it will be well more than 10 years before they will give you a new card.

As stated, Cap one will approve typically after 12 months from default

Re: Advice after BK

jmw1 — Wed, 02 Mar 2022 18:44:58 GMT

Forget Chase. The minimum auto-deny for a CH7 if you did NOT burn them is 10 years. If you burned them, it could be a lifetime ban.

Re: Advice after BK

Anonymous — Wed, 02 Mar 2022 19:07:57 GMT

Ok... I have a good follow up question for all of you.

what about the cards I never applied for or owned? Will they be acceptable after BK discharges.

like I never had AMEX, CITI, Bank of America, US Bank.

Re: Advice after BK

FireMedic1 — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 12:55:43 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Ok... I have a good follow up question for all of you.

what about the cards I never applied for or owned? Will they be acceptable after BK discharges.

like I never had AMEX, CITI, Bank of America, US Bank.

AMEX is 5yrs and 30 days after BK if they werent burned. The others. Wont happen. I know of BoA's two new secured cards but dont know any DP's of when they will approve. Maybe someone else has some DP's. Yes Cap1 is very forgiving.

Re: Advice after BK

jayhawk05 — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 00:11:39 GMT

@MileHigh96 wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
I filed Chapter 7 BK this year because of Covid, Layoffs and illness that hindered me from paying all my debt. So 2 major questions is...
What steps do I take to rebuild?

Can I ever get a unsecured credit card with a nice credit limit again?

Thanks any advice or wisdom would be greatly appreciated!
You can DEFINITELY get an unsecured card with a decent limit again. First things I would do is, as was already mentioned, pull your credit reports and make sure everything looks right. Second, you should take a look at your FICO scores. not sure if myFICO offers a free trial, but credit.com offers a one week free trial and there you can see every single one of your FICO scores. Seeing those will also give you an idea with what kind of rebuild you will need to start with. The minimum of what you need to get the most out of your FICO scoring during your rebuild is 3 revolving accounts and one installment loan of any kind.

I had a reaffirmed auto loan out of the gate after my BK7 was discharged, so maybe that helped my scores to start, but in the 30 days after my discharge, I was approved for Mission Lane ($1,000 CL), Ollo ($1,500 CL), and Mercury ($3,000 CL), all unsecured. And then the big one was 4 months after discharge, I got approved for a PenFed card with a $6,000 CL which made me very happy. So it can definitely be done. If you didn't burn them in your BK7, I would definitely open a saving account with PenFed to get in the door, because that's how you get your start with them. They are very BK friendly to people that never burned them, but of course your odds of approval will vary as everyone's file is different. And as mentioned too, stay away from places like Credit One unless you have absolutely no choice, there are A LOT of predatory lenders out there waiting to take advantage of people and the will "fee" you to death.

But keep your chin up, you can defnitely recover. Good luck on your rebuild!

Second PenFed. A lot of DPs on approvals, pretty quickly post discahrge. They pull EQ9.

Re: Advice after BK

jmcmillan — Sun, 06 Mar 2022 03:56:52 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Ok... I have a good follow up question for all of you.

what about the cards I never applied for or owned? Will they be acceptable after BK discharges.

like I never had AMEX, CITI, Bank of America, US Bank.

US Bank will approve you for their secured card. I got one in October 2021, which was about 10 months after my discharge. It will be eligible for graduation to an unsecured card after October 2022.

Re: Advice after BK

CH-7-Mission-Accomplished — Sun, 06 Mar 2022 05:06:12 GMT

@jmcmillan wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Ok... I have a good follow up question for all of you.

what about the cards I never applied for or owned? Will they be acceptable after BK discharges.

like I never had AMEX, CITI, Bank of America, US Bank.
US Bank will approve you for their secured card. I got one in October 2021, which was about 10 months after my discharge. It will be eligible for graduation to an unsecured card after October 2022.

US Bank will not unsecure a credit card until a BK is 5 years post filing.

Re: Advice after BK

jmcmillan — Sun, 06 Mar 2022 05:34:06 GMT

@CH-7-Mission-Accomplished wrote:
US Bank will not unsecure a credit card until a BK is 5 years post filing.

I haven't heard of that. Guess I'll find out in October.

Re: Advice after BK

stinastina — Thu, 10 Mar 2022 13:29:30 GMT

@jayhawk05 wrote:
Hello and welcome! First thing I would recommend is checking all three credit reports to ensure everything is reporting accurate post discharge.

As far as credit cards go, here are the ones I was approved for. I filed CH7 in 3/21 and it was discharged 6/21.

6/2021 - Mission Lane - $1,000 limit
8/2021 - Capital One Quicksilver (upgraded from Platinum, 2/22) - $300 limit
8/2021 - Mercury - $1,100 limit (increasedfrom $750 in 12/21)
1/22 - Kohls - $300 limit
2/22 - PenFed Power Cash - $5,000 limit
2/22 - Discover Cash Back - $2,000 limit

Discover, Capital One and others have prequal tools. I'd stay away from Credit One, as they are predatory.

good luck!

What kind of scores did you have before you got those cards ?