topic Re: from TU 530 in May 2009 to Chase Sapphire Preferred approval at $10k yesterday in Credit Cards

from TU 530 in May 2009 to Chase Sapphire Preferred approval at $10k yesterday

Anonymous — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 13:37:30 GMT

Keep doing the work - it pays off! They pulled Experian - currently at 716 with $8k reporting across 3 existing cards with combined cl's of $42k. Decided to take a shot at the Sapphire Preferred based on the bonus offer and also knowing that just paying those other 3 cards down could bump me to the 740-760 range pretty quickly if I wanted to re-app. Got the 10-day pending message (and that guilty feeling in the pit of my stomach for having possibly apped outside of my depth) then called the backdoor number last night and she said she could decision it on the spot. Put me on hold for 2 minutes and came back with $10k approval!!

Read the boards. FOLLOW the advice. Focus on the process. Celebrate and share.

Re: from TU 530 in May 2009 to Chase Sapphire Preferred approval at $10k yesterday

Lil_Me — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:50:05 GMT

Wow that is fantastic! I can not wait until it's my time..... :-) but I'm happy for you!

Re: from TU 530 in May 2009 to Chase Sapphire Preferred approval at $10k yesterday

CS800 — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:38:29 GMT

Great story. These are good to us rebuilders

Re: from TU 530 in May 2009 to Chase Sapphire Preferred approval at $10k yesterday

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:47:39 GMT

WOW!! That is incredible. I am so happy for you!!

Re: from TU 530 in May 2009 to Chase Sapphire Preferred approval at $10k yesterday

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:18:25 GMT

By FAR the best part of my rebuild was that I'd defaulted on 2 student loans and discovered the loan rehab offers that are available almost universally. Called em up, got on a payment plan, automated the payments for about 18 months - then they orginiated as new loans in good standing but reported the original loan origination date giving me essentially 2 15 yr+ tradelines reporting in good standing in place of 2 defaulted loans - complete and utter game changer.

For those of you who have lots to fix - if student loans are part of the problem - that's the place to start.

Re: from TU 530 in May 2009 to Chase Sapphire Preferred approval at $10k yesterday

RussianPassion — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:19:19 GMT

Congrats!

I have 2 questions for you.

What back door number did you call?

Can you elaborate on the student loan rehab program, please. I need to set something like that up for mu wife who has some bad old student loans.

Re: from TU 530 in May 2009 to Chase Sapphire Preferred approval at $10k yesterday

seattletravels — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:19:58 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
By FAR the best part of my rebuild was that I'd defaulted on 2 student loans and discovered the loan rehab offers that are available almost universally. Called em up, got on a payment plan, automated the payments for about 18 months - then they orginiated as new loans in good standing but reported the original loan origination date giving me essentially 2 15 yr+ tradelines reporting in good standing in place of 2 defaulted loans - complete and utter game changer.

For those of you who have lots to fix - if student loans are part of the problem - that's the place to start.

I went through loan rehab and mine are actually paid off now. The lenders updated to paid as agreed but the servicing company is saying they don't have to. Were you able to get the servicing company to update as well?

Re: from TU 530 in May 2009 to Chase Sapphire Preferred approval at $10k yesterday

UpNComing — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:25:17 GMT

RussianPassion are your wifes student loans through Dept of Ed? My wife did the rehab program with them. She simply called and set up a repayment program to catch up her arrears. Once she paid up they updated her report to paid as agreed.

Re: from TU 530 in May 2009 to Chase Sapphire Preferred approval at $10k yesterday

JusdoNit — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:56:12 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Keep doing the work - it pays off! Equifax is currently at 716 with $8k reporting across 3 existing cards with combined cl's of $42k. Decided to take a shot at the Sapphire Preferred based on the bonus offer and also knowing that just paying those other 3 cards down could bump me to the 740-760 range pretty quickly if I wanted to re-app. Got the 10-day pending message (and that guily feeling in the pit of my stomach for having possibly apped outside of my depth) then called the backdoor number last night and she said she could decision it on the spot. Put me on hold for 2 minutes and came back with $10k approval!!

Read the boards. FOLLOW the advice. Focus on the process. Celebrate and share.

How many inquiries did you have?

Re: from TU 530 in May 2009 to Chase Sapphire Preferred approval at $10k yesterday

getahead — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:08:30 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Keep doing the work - it pays off! Equifax is currently at 716 with $8k reporting across 3 existing cards with combined cl's of $42k. Decided to take a shot at the Sapphire Preferred based on the bonus offer and also knowing that just paying those other 3 cards down could bump me to the 740-760 range pretty quickly if I wanted to re-app. Got the 10-day pending message (and that guily feeling in the pit of my stomach for having possibly apped outside of my depth) then called the backdoor number last night and she said she could decision it on the spot. Put me on hold for 2 minutes and came back with $10k approval!!

Read the boards. FOLLOW the advice. Focus on the process. Celebrate and share.

Love it!! Congrats!

Re: from TU 530 in May 2009 to Chase Sapphire Preferred approval at $10k yesterday

frogfan12 — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 00:03:01 GMT

Congrats!

Re: from TU 530 in May 2009 to Chase Sapphire Preferred approval at $10k yesterday

Anonymous — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 13:34:16 GMT

@RussianPassion wrote:
Congrats!

I have 2 questions for you.

What back door number did you call?

Can you elaborate on the student loan rehab program, please. I need to set something like that up for mu wife who has some bad old student loans.

Backdoor Number I used: 888-245-0625

On the rehab program - I'm sure it varies by state, etc... but I started by going straight through the university's financial aid department, was candid about my non-payment, and asked what I could do to get back on track and make things right. This was all a couple of years ago now, so I'm foggy on the details, but I believe I set up automatic payments going straight through the university for the first 18 months - none of which impacted my credit report in any way at this point. At the end of 18 months, they contacted me to let me know they were handing the loans back over to AES, and at that point, 2 loans showed up on my report as positive tradelines with origination dates of 1995 and 1998. I set up automatic payments on those as well, even though I could afford to pay them off, in order to establish some recent payment history. I've been paying on those for about 18 months now as well - and actually just paid one off the other day mostly out of curiosity regarding the potential impact to my score. If it bumps up at all, then I'll pay the other one off as well.

The other big thing I did was get a secured card through wells fargo around the same time. Added $1000/month to the collateral account until I hit their $10k limit and used the card regularly with automatic payments set up there as well. after about 16 months with that, they graduated me to an unsecured card and bumped my limit to $11,500 - so now I had my first credit card in years - a platinum visa from wells fargo with a nice limit. Then I requested increase's every 6 months - always asking for at least a 50% bump - and that card is now at $22.5k limit. Finally, credit card offers started showing up in the mail (this is how you know you're getting back on track) and I was very selective - threw most away to avoid the inquiries, etc... really wanted to build slowly and develop the right habits. But a great offer came in from discover, and I got approved, then I decided to app for the Platinum Select Mastercard from Citi later that same week because I was on a roll and got appoved there as well. That was about a year ago - and so I used the cards, set up the auto-payments again, and didn't apply for anything else until this week when I went after the Chase card.

Meanwhile - through out all of that - I still had to address the baddies, collections, etc... that were out there, and so I just handled them all very carefully. It was important to me personally to do what I felt was morally correct regarding my debts - although the credit laws can really incent you to just ignore things until they drop off. However - in some cases, if a baddie is at 6 years, and you pay it off, instead of going away, you might risk resetting the 7 year reporting cycle from the date of last activity (how stupid is that). So I just made sure to go through lots of phone calls and letters to get reporting agreements in place for the things I had to pay off.

Despite my credit score peaking up above 750 for a while there, I still had one last baddie reporting - an amex charge off, that I FINALLY got removed a few months ago, 2 years after paying the balance off. Once that fell off, when it was time for me to follow up with Citi and Discover for my second round of credit limit increase requests, Discover didn't want to give me much of a bump - explaining that their records showed I had a charge off, so I let them know it was gone from my report and authorized them to do a hard pull, after which they bumped me from $5k to $9.5k (started at $3500). Through requests, Citi is now up to $10k as well - so I've got $42k available before the Sapphire shows up with an initial limit of $10k, but of course I'll work to bump that up as well, knowing that when I was approved, I was reporting a combined balance of over $8k across the other 3 cards which probably impacted the limit they approved me for.

So for the person who asked about inquiries - I keep it between 0-2 at any given time, and the higher my score and the better my overall credit health, the less I worry about it as a factor. Worth mentioning that I've got a high income (150+)which I'm sure helps with the limits when I apply, but that had no impact at all on the wells fargo visa, as I had all the time in the world to get that collateral account to $10k which became the de facto starting point for my limit once it unsecured.

Just focus on the PROCESS and not the results. The results will come as a reward of consistent, persistent behavior. Even once you do all the right things, there's going to be some time to sit around and wait for things to report, for accounts to mature, etc... Use that time to reflect, build the patience and self-control you need to avoid ever going back to the behaviors that got you where you are now. Life's a journey, and where you are now is not your ultimate destination. Keep your head high, look toward the future, but live in the present to create your own destiny. Compare your life to those LESS fortunate for real perspective on how much you have to be grateful for. Seek happiness and success, be comfortable with mistakes, and know that you can never fail if you don't quit. Be honest with yourself and others about where you are and where you've been. It's amazing how freeing it is to get past the act we put on for everyone else - and also how many others are facing the same things but are too ashamed to ask for help or guidance until they know you've been there too. And don't forget to plug into your hard-wired happiness along the way: http://www.ted.com/talks/srikumar_rao_plug_into_your_hard_wired_happiness.html

Now go do it!