topic Re: Giving Capital One EO a try in Credit Cards

Giving Capital One EO a try

Anonymous — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:44:41 GMT

After reading about repeated positive experiences from the myFico Community I'm giving it a try! I have no idea how it'll turn out but I'm optimistic. I've been working so hard to repair my credit after going through some financial struggles 6 years ago. I do not have a single negative item on my credit report over the past 3 years and my debt to income ratio is less than 10%. The problem is I have all these rebuilder credit cards with tiny limits. The simple act of buying groceries can result in over 50% utilization. Depending on when charges and payments post my utilization can fluctuate from under 20% to over 40% from one month to the next and my credit score can go up and down 50-80 points every month as a result. I had the magic 700 in my sites back in January, but ended up needing emergency dental work which I had to use my CareCredit card for. I had just paid it off and then used $1500 of my $2000 credit limit to pay for it. The day that reported my credit score fell an average of 55 points between the three credit bureaus, because my utilization went from 18% to 45% (that card has the largest CL) I'm hoping to buy a house in the fall and I just can't deal with those kind of fluctuations! Plus my husband and I love to travel and it's frustrating to have to make sure we have so much extra cash just to cover the hotel's incidental authorization! My income alone is well over 6 figures and we have a very healthy savings, I just want credit limits that make sense! I have 3 Cap 1 cards here's what I asked for:

Orchard Bank Gold Card, opened in Jan 2011, $0 balance, paid in full every month, current CL $420, asking for $5000
Capital One Platinum, opened Aug 2011, currently has a balance of $400, current CL $750, asking for $2500
Best Buy Rewards, opened Jun 2012, $0 balance, paid in full every month, current CL $300, asking for $1500

What do you think my chances are that they will increase all three? Do you think those requests are reasonable? If they do approve it the FICO score simulator says my EX will jump to between 685-711 and TU to between 715-730! Oh to be in the 700 club!!!

Re: Giving Capital One EO a try

myjourney — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:50:36 GMT

Bestbuy can't say but the other 2 I would say you have a good chance of seeing results in your favor. Good luck

@Anonymous wrote:
After reading about repeated positive experiences from the myFico Community I'm giving it a try! I have no idea how it'll turn out but I'm optimistic. I've been working so hard to repair my credit after going through some financial struggles 6 years ago. I do not have a single negative item on my credit report over the past 3 years and my debt to income ratio is less than 10%. The problem is I have all these rebuilder credit cards with tiny limits. The simple act of buying groceries can result in over 50% utilization. Depending on when charges and payments post my utilization can fluctuate from under 20% to over 40% from one month to the next and my credit score can go up and down 50-80 points every month as a result. I had the magic 700 in my sites back in January, but ended up needing emergency dental work which I had to use my CareCredit card for. I had just paid it off and then used $1500 of my $2000 credit limit to pay for it. The day that reported my credit score fell an average of 55 points between the three credit bureaus, because my utilization went from 18% to 45% (that card has the largest CL) I'm hoping to buy a house in the fall and I just can't deal with those kind of fluctuations! Plus my husband and I love to travel and it's frustrating to have to make sure we have so much extra cash just to cover the hotel's incidental authorization! My income alone is well over 6 figures and we have a very healthy savings, I just want credit limits that make sense! I have 3 Cap 1 cards here's what I asked for:
Orchard Bank Gold Card, opened in Jan 2011, $0 balance, paid in full every month, current CL $420, asking for $5000
Capital One Platinum, opened Aug 2011, currently has a balance of $400, current CL $750, asking for $2500
Best Buy Rewards, opened Jun 2012, $0 balance, paid in full every month, current CL $300, asking for $1500
What do you think my chances are that they will increase all three? Do you think those requests are reasonable? If they do approve it the FICO score simulator says my EX will jump to between 685-711 and TU to between 715-730! Oh to be in the 700 club!!!

Re: Giving Capital One EO a try

Anonymous — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 23:13:43 GMT

With your income and up and coming scores you are well on your way but I would suggest one thing.

I would pay the Cap1 card down to $20 then let it report and then contact EO for CLi.

I am just now getting hot and heavy in to credit and scoring models etc and am certainly no expert but everything I read shows a lower score for zero balance on your card.

I carry roughly 10% on one card and 0% on the other four.

You said your Cap1 is at $400 out of $750 which is 55% or so.

FICO measures not only each card but overall and that card balance in my opinion is hurting your score.

If you wait to call EO after paying down the balance to say $20 I would almost guarantee an increase.

EDIT: Forgot just got a new card few weeks ago.

Re: Giving Capital One EO a try

Anonymous — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 23:25:36 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
With your income and up and coming scores you are well on your way but I would suggest one thing.

I would pay the Cap1 card down to $20 then let it report and then contact EO for CLi.

I am just now getting hot and heavy in to credit and scoring models etc and am certainly no expert but everything I read shows a lower score for zero balance on your card.

I carry roughly 10% on one card and 0% on the other four.

You said your Cap1 is at $400 out of $750 which is 55% or so.

FICO measures not only each card but overall and that card balance in my opinion is hurting your score.

If you wait to call EO after paying down the balance to say $50 I would almost guarantee an increase.

EDIT: Forgot just got a new card few weeks ago.

My current utilization is showing at 45%, but its not including big payments I made recently on other accounts, I expect next month for utilization to be around 25%. I have a payment scheduled for the Cap 1 Platinum card on April 12th for $175, $200 of the current balance is a charge from a dog training place that I have an appointment with tomorrow. It's a consultation for my dog to enter their Therapy Dog program, the consultation is free but they require a deposit of $200 in case you don't show it's there cancellation fee. I made the appointment 2 months ago so its been sitting there and will be refunded back to me after my appointment tomorrow. I know it sounds crazy but this place is the best training program in my area. My husband runs a non-profit for kids with cancer and he wants our dog to become its mascot and make hospital visits with the kids. I decided to sent the e-mail now because I'm getting to the point where utilization is the only thing hurting my score. I pay all of them at the same point in the month but they all report to the credit bureaus at different times, so short of just not using them at all, a credit limit increase would make keeping my credit utilization low easier. Here's a breakdown of my current revolving credit, though they haven't all updated these balances on my credit report :

Show Mastercard, CL: $550, current balance $250, payment scheduled for mid-April will bring to $0.

Legacy Visa, CL: $350, current balance $0, previous balance $248, just paid in full.

Orchard Bank, CL: $420, current balance $0

Best Buy Rewards, CL: $300, current balance $0

First Premier, CL: $250, current balance $0

First Premier Platinum, CL: $400, current balance $280 (just used to purchase bridesmaid dress for my sisters wedding, had to order over the phone), paying 1/2 in April, 1/2 in May

Cap 1 Platinum, CL: $750, current balance $400

Banana Republic, CL: $400, current balance $120, paying in full in April

Express, CL: $840, current balance $285, will be paid in full by June

Victoria's Secret, CL: $700, current balance $310, will be paid in full by June

CareCredit, CL: $2000, current balance $1280

Credit One, CL: $450, current balance $0

Yes I know I could just pay them all off at once, but I'm trying to balance savings with paying down my debt. I try to save 20% of my paycheck and I refuse to raid my savings to pay these down, especially when I'll have them all paid off by the end of May. My goal is to get my CLI increased on my Cap1 cards, close my rebuilder cards (1st Premier, Show, Legacy, Credit One) and then I'm aiming for the Barclays Sallie Mae Rewards Card and JetBlue Amex. After I close on a mortgage of course!

Re: Giving Capital One EO a try

Anonymous — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 22:43:20 GMT

Well I sent the e-mail on Friday March 22nd and still no response. I'm a little disappointed, everyone seems to have had such good luck.

Re: Giving Capital One EO a try

myjourney — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 22:50:47 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Well I sent the e-mail on Friday March 22nd and still no response. I'm a little disappointed, everyone seems to have had such good luck.

That's unusual im sending you an PM

Re: Giving Capital One EO a try

indiolatino61 — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 03:40:12 GMT

I also have a $750 Cap1. I will also try the EO route when the card hits one year in July. Good luck to you and keep us informed on your progress.

Re: Giving Capital One EO a try

myjourney — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 04:03:49 GMT

@indiolatino61 wrote:
I also have a $750 Cap1. I will also try the EO route when the card hits one year in July. Good luck to you and keep us informed on your progress.

I didn't wait a year I have 2 cards with them as a matter of fact I got them the same day and both limits were doubled.

I emailed after 6 months so please dont feel you have to wait a year for results and its a SP.

Re: Giving Capital One EO a try

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 04:09:14 GMT

So I finally got a call back from the Cap 1 EO office about 15 minutes ago. The gentleman I spoke with stated he only handled the former HSBC accounts. He said that they needed to verify my income and the increase amounts, then he asked for my permission to do a hard pull on my credit. I wasn't excited about it, but i have only 4 inquiries in the past year and most are quite old. Only 7 in the past 2 years. He explained that, while he wouldn't make any promises, they try their best to approve my request. He mentioned they hadn't been offering CLIs for quite some time so they really wanted to try to do so now, especially for a quality customer like me (that made me laugh). So the requests that are being reviewed are my Orchard Bank Card which I opened in Jan 2011, it has a current credit limit of $420, never had a CLI, requested $5k, and my Best Buy RZ Card, opened in June 2012 with a pathetic $300 credit limit. Wish me luck! I would be beyond estatic if this request was approved. I make a pretty signficant amount of money and it's so frustrating to have such paltry credit limits. I haven't had a single negative mark on my credit report in 3 years, this would help me so much because my utilization would be so much better and that alone would raise my scores 50-80 points! I'm so close to the 700 club I can taste it!

Re: Giving Capital One EO a try

myjourney — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 22:50:42 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
So I finally got a call back from the Cap 1 EO office about 15 minutes ago. The gentleman I spoke with stated he only handled the former HSBC accounts. He said that they needed to verify my income and the increase amounts, then he asked for my permission to do a hard pull on my credit. I wasn't excited about it, but i have only 4 inquiries in the past year and most are quite old. Only 7 in the past 2 years. He explained that, while he wouldn't make any promises, they try their best to approve my request. He mentioned they hadn't been offering CLIs for quite some time so they really wanted to try to do so now, especially for a quality customer like me (that made me laugh). So the requests that are being reviewed are my Orchard Bank Card which I opened in July 2011, it has a current credit limit of $420, never had a CLI, requested $5k, and my Best Buy RZ Card, opened in October 2012 with a pathetic $300 credit limit. Wish me luck! I would be beyond estatic if this request was approved. I make a pretty signficant amount of money and it's so frustrating to have such paltry credit limits. I haven't had a single negative mark on my credit report in 3 years, this would help me so much because my utilization would be so much better and that alone would raise my scores 50-80 points! I'm so close to the 700 club I can taste it!

Wishing you double luck and best wishes

Re: Giving Capital One EO a try

dodgerslv — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 22:55:07 GMT

@myjourney wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
So I finally got a call back from the Cap 1 EO office about 15 minutes ago. The gentleman I spoke with stated he only handled the former HSBC accounts. He said that they needed to verify my income and the increase amounts, then he asked for my permission to do a hard pull on my credit. I wasn't excited about it, but i have only 4 inquiries in the past year and most are quite old. Only 7 in the past 2 years. He explained that, while he wouldn't make any promises, they try their best to approve my request. He mentioned they hadn't been offering CLIs for quite some time so they really wanted to try to do so now, especially for a quality customer like me (that made me laugh). So the requests that are being reviewed are my Orchard Bank Card which I opened in July 2011, it has a current credit limit of $420, never had a CLI, requested $5k, and my Best Buy RZ Card, opened in October 2012 with a pathetic $300 credit limit. Wish me luck! I would be beyond estatic if this request was approved. I make a pretty signficant amount of money and it's so frustrating to have such paltry credit limits. I haven't had a single negative mark on my credit report in 3 years, this would help me so much because my utilization would be so much better and that alone would raise my scores 50-80 points! I'm so close to the 700 club I can taste it!

Wishing you double luck and best wishes

GOOD LUCK and keep us updated!

Re: Giving Capital One EO a try

LS2982 — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 22:55:28 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
So I finally got a call back from the Cap 1 EO office about 15 minutes ago. The gentleman I spoke with stated he only handled the former HSBC accounts. He said that they needed to verify my income and the increase amounts, then he asked for my permission to do a hard pull on my credit. I wasn't excited about it, but i have only 4 inquiries in the past year and most are quite old. Only 7 in the past 2 years. He explained that, while he wouldn't make any promises, they try their best to approve my request. He mentioned they hadn't been offering CLIs for quite some time so they really wanted to try to do so now, especially for a quality customer like me (that made me laugh). So the requests that are being reviewed are my Orchard Bank Card which I opened in July 2011, it has a current credit limit of $420, never had a CLI, requested $5k, and my Best Buy RZ Card, opened in October 2012 with a pathetic $300 credit limit. Wish me luck! I would be beyond estatic if this request was approved. I make a pretty signficant amount of money and it's so frustrating to have such paltry credit limits. I haven't had a single negative mark on my credit report in 3 years, this would help me so much because my utilization would be so much better and that alone would raise my scores 50-80 points! I'm so close to the 700 club I can taste it!

Fingers crossed for you!!!

Re: Giving Capital One EO a try

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 17:27:21 GMT

Another update, a very nice, cheerful woman called me from the Capital One EO office this morning, she said she'd be handling my request on my Capital One account. She asked for my employment information, income, investments, monthly rent, etc.. She asked how much of an increase I would like and how much I would accept if they couldn't get approved for the total increase I requested. I explained I was hoping to get my CLI to $5000 but would accept a partial increase (anything at this point would help), she said she would send it off to be reviewed by a senior underwriter and that I should have a decision in 7 business days. Seriously I really hope my 3 requests are approved, I have worked so hard to improve my credit now I'm just in limbo until all my baddies drop off in the next 12 months. The worst of the baddies falls off in May or June of this year. I have 8 baddies, by the end of this year I will have 5 drop off. 700 club is so close I can taste it! Thank you everyone for your help and information to do this, I hope to have good news to report soon!

Re: Giving Capital One EO a try

Anonymous — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 21:34:30 GMT

So I finally heard back from Capital One and I have to say I'm beyond disappointed. My request for a CLI were pretty much declined. The requests for the Orchard Bank and Best Buy cards were flat out denied the request for a CLI from Capital One was approved for a measly $150. I'm flabbergasted I've seen so many success stories, I make a significant income, I have never had a late payment on these accounts, no late payments for over 3 years, I just don't get it! I'm so disappointed. The worst part now I have a hard pull and nothing to show for it!

Re: Giving Capital One EO a try

dodfire — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 21:34:30 GMT

Sorry to hear that...

Re: Giving Capital One EO a try

LS2982 — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 21:35:01 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
So I finally heard back from Capital One and I have to say I'm beyond disappointed. My request for a CLI were pretty much declined. The requests for the Orchard Bank and Best Buy cards were flat out denied the request for a CLI from Capital One was approved for a measly $150. I'm flabbergasted I've seen so many success stories, I make a significant income, I have never had a late payment on these accounts, no late payments for over 3 years, I just don't get it! I'm so disappointed.

Wow...........

Thats really stinks. I think your scores may have played a role in the denials. I would work on getting above 680 an try them again!!

Re: Giving Capital One EO a try

09Lexie — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 21:35:13 GMT

Wow! I'm sorry to hear it didn't work out well.

Re: Giving Capital One EO a try

Anonymous — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 21:42:50 GMT

I'm not sure I believe that my scores are the issue, there are numerous examples of people with lower scores and more negative files than mine having success, and significantly more success than me. Some had higher utilization, less history with the company, etc.. My scores are in the mid 600s. I'm seriously floored. I have 3 years of clean history, over a year with 2 of the 3 cards, significant income, low debt to income. Basd on everyone else's success I never in a million years thought I'd get declined for 2 cards, and recieve such a small increase on the other. It barely impacts my utilization number. It doesn't help me achieve anything.

Re: Giving Capital One EO a try

Anonymous — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 21:42:26 GMT

Sorry to hear that.

The nice thing about the Cap One EO is that there is no hard "set in stone" time to wait to try again.

Soooooo.....

Pay down every card you can to try and get your total Utilization below 9% (5% is the magic number).

If you can get them all to zero except one, its even better.

Then wait for them all to report. (This is the part that sucks)

Once they report your score will start to climb with each new statement reporting to the bureaus.

Once they are all in and your score is as high as its going to go, call the Cap One EO back again and try once more.

If you give them 5% util or less total and low inquiries, its almost a sure fire thing that you will see and increase that is meaningful

You must understand that they hear "I am going to pay it off" all the time. Its much much better if you can show it to them via your reports so they think to themselves "okay good, this person had XXXX in balances and paid them all off in one or two months so he/she can probably afford a higher limit pretty easily"

Good luck

Re: Giving Capital One EO a try

dodgerslv — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 21:49:35 GMT

@LS2982 wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
So I finally heard back from Capital One and I have to say I'm beyond disappointed. My request for a CLI were pretty much declined. The requests for the Orchard Bank and Best Buy cards were flat out denied the request for a CLI from Capital One was approved for a measly $150. I'm flabbergasted I've seen so many success stories, I make a significant income, I have never had a late payment on these accounts, no late payments for over 3 years, I just don't get it! I'm so disappointed.
Wow...........

Thats really stinks. I think your scores may have played a role in the denials. I would work on getting above 680 an try them again!!

sorry to hear that shanao but i have to agree with LS...but dont give up, in time you will see those scores go up more and more! Wait till those baddies fall off at the end of the year and see where you stand and try again!