topic Re: My Situation. in Credit Cards

My Situation.

QCTRAV — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 20:05:25 GMT

Hey all! I started my credit journey in 2009 (Im currently 24) with 0 credit. I went ahead and signed up for a Cap 1 Secured Card. Shortly after that i signed up for a First Premere SC which both had about a $300 limit. Over the past two years i would use them for gas etc to build some credit. Last year around this time Cap 1 sent me a pre-approval in the mail for a normal cap1 plat card. I was approved with a 1k limit! Since then my credit score was up to a 650 ( nothing special ). Well life was really good at this time for me because I was living with my family, i had a 2009 Paid for Hummer H2 and really didnt need credit. Well, the hummer had to go and it was up to me to get a car. I went to my CU and applied for a car loan. I got 11k plus they wanted to get me into a CC with them for 1k. After getting all of that my score droped all the way down to a 510 where it currently sits.

Can I get some advice? Should i close out the two secured cards now while im down? Should i wait for it to go back up? I think having them im my name looks bad but im not sure!! Help!

Re: My Situation.

starry1 — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 20:07:50 GMT

That doesn't sound quite right. Have you pulled your reports to make sure a collection or something wasn't put on there? Do you have your cards maxed out?

Re: My Situation.

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 20:08:45 GMT

There are folks here with a lot more knowledge than I posess but a 140 point drop because you took out a 11K car loan and added another CC does not sound right.

Are you sure nothing else changed on your reports?

Re: My Situation.

QCTRAV — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 20:11:30 GMT

Sometimes the two $300 cards would be maxed, I would pay them off each much but sometimes at the wrong time, they would post high. It was my mistake. Do you think closeing the two cards would hurt me in the future.

Re: My Situation.

QCTRAV — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 20:12:48 GMT

Month*

Re: My Situation.

starry1 — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 20:14:42 GMT

There are others who know way more about credit cards than I do, but my opinion is your file is too thin to start closing cards already.

Re: My Situation.

09Lexie — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 20:30:55 GMT

How long has your score been in the 500's? Where are you getting your scores? To be clear, you have an auto loan, three cc's; correct? What's your util? Baddies?

Re: My Situation.

lithium78 — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 21:08:01 GMT

I don't think you should be closing anything right now. You need all the positive TLs you can get. Do you have any collections? Usually people have scores in the 500s when they have a lot of baddies. (I know that was true in my case back in the day.)

Re: My Situation.

QCTRAV — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 23:00:51 GMT

Here is my credit info from FreeCreditScore.com

Last month it was a 607, Now is Currently 510.. Only changes were adding a $1,000 CC and $11,200 Car Loan.

I currently have 4 open CC's

FP Secured $300

Cap1 Secured $300

Cap 1 Plat $500

PACU $1,000

Only baddie was when i first turned 18 I opened a BoA CC that was $400, I defaulted on that card, which since then I have paid off and it shows a zero balance.

Never late on the three cards I currently have Dateing from 2011-Present ( the PACU card is a month old )

Re: My Situation.

09Lexie — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 23:14:30 GMT

Freecreditscore uses FAKO ; what is your util with all your rev cc's?

Re: My Situation.

QCTRAV — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 23:23:34 GMT

It is currently 60%

I know its not the best, the problem is If i use them one time it puts them at a high ratio because they are so small. Should i just pay them off and not use them for a bit?

Re: My Situation.

09Lexie — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 23:27:44 GMT

Util does not have a memory as far as FICO is concerned. If you are contemplating apping or asking for CLI's, your current situation would need to be adjusted. 60% is too high and it is adversely impacting your score. For optimal scoring, allow one cc to report a balance and have a util of 1-10% report.

Re: My Situation.

QCTRAV — Thu, 14 Nov 2013 02:09:24 GMT

So do i keep the two low $300 SC's?

Re: My Situation.

09Lexie — Thu, 14 Nov 2013 03:03:40 GMT

IMO, you are not in the position to close anything. Your util would just go higher. Pay your debt down, your score will go up.

Re: My Situation.

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Nov 2013 06:35:04 GMT

I think you need to buy a FICO score. The score your quoting is not really relevant in to lenders so it really has no weight in your situation. You might be pleasantly surprised

Re: My Situation.

Creditaddict — Thu, 14 Nov 2013 06:48:50 GMT

What was score when credit union gave you car and credit card?
No lates?

You need to pull at least 1 fico and see... You don't hit 510 with things being current!

Re: My Situation.

jamie123 — Thu, 14 Nov 2013 07:38:01 GMT

Okay...First off...

Don't close anything! If you close your cards your scores will go DOWN and not up!

It would really help if we had some additional scores to give you more accurate advice. People that have thin files, as you do, sometimes get really screwy scores from the free score websites. (All the free score websites are not very accurate.) If you don't want to pay for a score here at MyFICO you can try a few other free score websites and stop back here with the results. It would help us tremendously and you can even see if you have any other additional baddies that you are unaware of.

Try these websites:

CreditKarma.com

CreditSesame.com

Credit.com

Each one of these sites has its plusses and minuses and none of their scores are completely accurate but are usually in the ballpark.

Get your scores and report back here.