topic Re: CLI with soft pull? in Credit Cards

CLI with soft pull?

Anonymous — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 21:36:56 GMT

Let me start off by saying that I know this information is out there, and I did a quick search but wasn't able to find anything quickly. So, I hope you all will forgive me, but I don't want to research all these cards individually.

Anyway, I just paid off all my CC debt (woot), and I'm excited to see what the impact on my credit score is when my reports update. But, I do have a $3000 balance on my BoA card that's on there as a 0% loan to my fiance to finish up school, as she exhausted all the student loan resources available to her. (The government and these schools just don't understand that what's available is terribly insufficient for those with zero support from their parents, and private school is expensive) So I was thinking to get a CLI to lower my util even further than the ~15% it will be.

I have:

AMEX Blue Cash: 0 / 2500

Discover More: 0 / 5300

Chase Freedom: 0 / 3000

Bank Of America: 3200 / 3500

Home Depot: 0 / 2500

HHGregg: 0 / 1850

First Tennessee: 0 / 2000

American Eagle: 0 / 800

Does anybody know if any of these cards grant CLIs with a soft pull? It would be especially helpful if BoA did, but I doubt that they would grant me a CLI with my report the way it looks right now (just paid off $2000 on Discover and $1100 on HHGregg and it hasn't updated).

Re: CLI with soft pull?

andre181 — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 22:06:51 GMT

Amex and BoA will do CLI's with soft pulls

Re: CLI with soft pull?

Walt_K — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 22:14:14 GMT

According to this thread Discover does soft pulls, but depending on what they see may require a hard pull.

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/Discover-CLI/m-p/669133/highlight/true#M213819

Re: CLI with soft pull?

Anonymous — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 22:19:28 GMT

I searched a bit and I think BoA may be soft pull only if you have the luv button. Is this the way it is? I don't have the luv button, and deservedly so, as my BoA account is at 90% util.

It's not worth it to BT to me. I'll probably just put off my app for the PenFed rewards Visa for another 3 months, until she can pay off the balance. I've been a member of PenFed for just over 2 years now anticipating an app for the Visa, lol! You can't say I'm not patient.

Does anybody have any experience to speculate how a 90% util rate on one card will affect your score if all your other cards are paid, and your overall util is less than 15%?

Also, I just remembered I got an Auto CLI from Discover 4 months ago. So that may be out of the question. I got a CLI from BoA a little over 6 months ago before the BT, and I used the luv button to do that. So, I should have remembered about BoA, they are definitely soft if you have the luv button and it doesn't warn you that they have to pull your credit.

Re: CLI with soft pull?

haulingthescoreup — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 22:50:47 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I searched a bit and I think BoA may be soft pull only if you have the luv button. Is this the way it is? I don't have the luv button, and deservedly so, as my BoA account is at 90% util.

It's not worth it to BT to me. I'll probably just put off my app for the PenFed rewards Visa for another 3 months, until she can pay off the balance. I've been a member of PenFed for just over 2 years now anticipating an app for the Visa, lol! You can't say I'm not patient.

Does anybody have any experience to speculate how a 90% util rate on one card will affect your score if all your other cards are paid, and your overall util is less than 15%?

Also, I just remembered I got an Auto CLI from Discover 4 months ago. So that may be out of the question. I got a CLI from BoA a little over 6 months ago before the BT, and I used the luv button to do that. So, I should have remembered about BoA, they are definitely soft if you have the luv button and it doesn't warn you that they have to pull your credit.

When I first did a BT with BofA, it put me at 84% individual util on the card, but overall, everything else showed $0 or nearly so, and total util was <7%, I think. No change in score, and I've read similar reports from others. One member saw no change for one card, but a drop for two cards. Doesn't mean it happens for everyone, of course, and I don't know if there's a big difference between 84% and 90%.

btw, this is how i got a CLI from BofA from $10K to $18K. I told them that the BT put me at way too high util, and I wanted to get it under 50%, so up it went. This was 4 years ago, before the meltdown, and I'd just gone on my app spree, and scores were in the low 700's. So a different climate back then, plus they might regard high util resulting from usage (= shopping) differently from high util resulting from a BT.

Re: CLI with soft pull?

andre181 — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 22:57:28 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I searched a bit and I think BoA may be soft pull only if you have the luv button. Is this the way it is? I don't have the luv button, and deservedly so, as my BoA account is at 90% util.

It's not worth it to BT to me. I'll probably just put off my app for the PenFed rewards Visa for another 3 months, until she can pay off the balance. I've been a member of PenFed for just over 2 years now anticipating an app for the Visa, lol! You can't say I'm not patient.

Does anybody have any experience to speculate how a 90% util rate on one card will affect your score if all your other cards are paid, and your overall util is less than 15%?

Also, I just remembered I got an Auto CLI from Discover 4 months ago. So that may be out of the question. I got a CLI from BoA a little over 6 months ago before the BT, and I used the luv button to do that. So, I should have remembered about BoA, they are definitely soft if you have the luv button and it doesn't warn you that they have to pull your credit.

Even if you call, its still a soft pull

Re: CLI with soft pull?

jefftca925 — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 04:32:04 GMT

@Walt_K wrote:
According to this thread Discover does soft pulls, but depending on what they see may require a hard pull.

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/Discover-CLI/m-p/669133/highlight/true#M213819

that's an old post and around that time Discover changed their policy to doing hard pulls for ANY customer initiated CLI requests.

Re: CLI with soft pull?

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 12:54:09 GMT

@jefftca925 wrote:

@Walt_K wrote:
According to this thread Discover does soft pulls, but depending on what they see may require a hard pull.

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/Discover-CLI/m-p/669133/highlight/true#M213819
that's an old post and around that time Discover changed their policy to doing hard pulls for ANY customer initiated CLI requests.

Gotcha, well they've been excellent to me about auto CLIs, so I guess I won't push it. They're my highest limit right now anyway.