topic Re: Best Balance Transfer? in Credit Cards

Best Balance Transfer?

elvigy — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 20:58:14 GMT

Hi-new to the board and have a question. I'll try to keep it focused and not ramble.

I had a Citi credit card a few years ago that had a $25,000 limit on it. I owed about 22k or so back in 2009 when they decided to raise my interest rate to 30%, even though I had never once paid late. The only way to stop that was to cancel the card and pay it off at the then current rate of 17%, which I've been doing. The balance is now about $6,500. Since that was my only credit card, I have lived without a cc for three years. The only debt I had was that card and my mortgage. Recently, though, I had to buy a new car since my old one pooped out on me. That was about 2 weeks ago so now I have a car payment starting in August and wanted to reduce the amount I'm paying towards the Citi card. I had been paying $550.00 a month but will need to cut that down to $300.00 to maintain my finances. But it seems sensible to try and transfer that balance to a new card to stretch the $300/month a little further.

As mentioned, I have no debts other than mortgage, the balance on the Citi card (which was closed at my request) and a new car loan which I don't think has shown up yet on my file. I do have the inquiries from obtaining the car loan (there were about 6 from a 2-3 day period). I only know my Equifax score which is 744. I have copies of the reports from all 3 agencies and no derogatory information.

So finally, I get to the question. What card would be best to transfer this debt? I was looking at the Chase Slate since it has 0 transfer fee and 0% APR for 15 months, but I keep reading that this card is hard to get and even if you do get it, the limit will be low, which won't do me any good. What do you think my chances of getting at least a $7k limit with them are? If low, what other card would be a better shot to accomplish a reasonable balance transfer?

Thanks for any suggestions!

Re: Best Balance Transfer?

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 21:32:09 GMT

What does your cr say about the Citi cc?

Welcome to the forum!

Re: Best Balance Transfer?

elvigy — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 22:02:33 GMT

Thanks.

All 3 say the same thing-always paid on time, account closed at customer request, limit was $25k current balance is $6900. Highest balance was $22k.

Edit-Also, I didn't think to mention it but I did have other cards in the past. They're all closed now (I didn't know not to do that). They all show as closed by customer and all paid on time. There was a Target card and one or two other Visa or Mastercards, but don't have the report in front of me right now to list details. Does that help?

Re: Best Balance Transfer?

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 22:14:16 GMT

So, no existing open lines cr?

Re: Best Balance Transfer?

elvigy — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 22:18:46 GMT

Er, cr? Line of credit? Not sure of all the lingo lol. But no, I don't have any open credit cards or loans beyond the mortgage (12 years) and now the new car loan. I've lived off the debit card from my checking account.

Re: Best Balance Transfer?

HiLine — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 22:42:49 GMT

The Slate should not be hard to get for a high credit limit. Your credit history looks good. With some reasonable income you should be able to get a reasonable limit on the Slate. It may be worth your time going over previous threads on the card to match the limits with applicants' income.

Re: Best Balance Transfer?

elvigy — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 22:52:11 GMT

Thanks! I'm searching now and it's hard to find a similar situation. Most people seem to have quite a few cards here.

I make 57k a year so a 7k credit card doesn't seem out of line to me but who knows. My main fear is to end up with a limit too low to do me any good. Then I'm still paying 17% and applying somewhere else. Or would it be OK to apply with Chase and cancel it if I didn't get a high enough limit?

Re: Best Balance Transfer?

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 22:55:25 GMT

Are you near a Chase branch? If so, I'd suggest speaking with a banker as your cr history is good but you have no open lines. They may have issues with that and the best way is to talk with them directly.

Chase is really good on recons so you have a good chance if your CL is insufficient.

Re: Best Balance Transfer?

elvigy — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 23:12:09 GMT

Hmm, good idea but according to their website there is not a branch within 30 miles of me. I may just pull the trigger and see. Even if worse comes to worst, I'll just keep paying the 17%.

Edit-So I just found out about the Credit Karma and Credit Sesame sites and gave those a shot. According to Credit Karma my score is 769 and Credit Sesame is even more generous with 810. That seems a bit much compared to the score I got from myfico.com based on Equifax. Are those sites reliable?

Re: Best Balance Transfer?

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 23:09:58 GMT

Good luck! Remember, you can still recon and explain your lack of open cc's

Re: Best Balance Transfer?

HiLine — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 23:11:05 GMT

And if the limit is too low and you can't ask for more, you can also apply for another BT card as well.

Re: Best Balance Transfer?

parakleet — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 23:11:29 GMT

Chase is really good with recons so even if you get a low CL, I'd definitely call in and ask for higher CL. You might have to take another HP but I'd say the savings you'd get would be well worth it. Even if you get denied, I'd definitely call.

Re: Best Balance Transfer?

elvigy — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 23:13:23 GMT

Thanks everyone! I'm going to give it a shot!

Re: Best Balance Transfer?

elvigy — Tue, 30 Jul 2013 15:19:44 GMT

OK, more questions. So I applied for the Chase Slate card online and got a response that it was pending review. I called them and the guy that answered told me I was declined due to multiple inquiries earlier this month. I explained to him that all those were from my car shopping and he did say that a couple of them were marked as auto loans but some were not. He said they were bank inquiries and gave me the names. (By the way, they pulled Equifax which is the one I'm monitoring through myfico so that helped). His only suggestion was that I speak to Equifax to straighten it out.

I chatted online with Equifax and was told that I would have to get the car dealers to notify Equifax that the bank pulls in question were all related to my shopping for a car loan. This seems odd to me since there's no way that the dealers that I did NOT buy a car from are going to do me that favor. I'm not even sure that the dealership I did end up buying from would bother. Isn't it Equifax's responsibility to make sure the info in my report is correct? I told them that those inquiries were all for auto loan shopping and Francisco (that was the reps name) said basically that I have to prove it by getting the dealer to write/email Equifax stating such.

So what do I do now? There's really no chance of me going to the 3 different car dealers I talked to and gathering up letters from each of them just so Equifax will mark those inquiries as auto loans.

And now my credit score has gone down to 730 from 744 due to the Chase inquiry.

Re: Best Balance Transfer?

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Jul 2013 17:24:43 GMT

Contact the finance manager of each dealership. Chances are Chase will want to pull another cr to make sure the changes have been done.

Re: Best Balance Transfer?

elvigy — Tue, 30 Jul 2013 22:02:08 GMT

I was too lazy to do all that calling around to be honest so I gave one last shot at calling Chase and explaining the inquiries. I got a much friendlier person this time and after asking some questions about where I work, what I do and how long I've been there, as well as how long I've had my house, she put me on hold and came back and told me I had been approved for a $10k card! So just wanted to thank the board. I honestly never knew there was any recourse after the initial denial so a little knowledge and some persistence has really paid off.

Re: Best Balance Transfer?

kevinjjc — Tue, 30 Jul 2013 23:56:31 GMT

@elvigy wrote:
I was too lazy to do all that calling around to be honest so I gave one last shot at calling Chase and explaining the inquiries. I got a much friendlier person this time and after asking some questions about where I work, what I do and how long I've been there, as well as how long I've had my house, she put me on hold and came back and told me I had been approved for a $10k card! So just wanted to thank the board. I honestly never knew there was any recourse after the initial denial so a little knowledge and some persistence has really paid off.

Congrats! I'm glad you decided to do another Chase recon. Your persistence paid off.

Re: Best Balance Transfer?

myjourney — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 00:08:02 GMT

Congrats