topic Re: Rebuild help and struggle in Rebuilding Your Credit

Rebuild help and struggle

Anonymous — Sat, 29 Dec 2018 05:30:13 GMT

So long story short, I lost my income in 2014 and had 15 collections. I currently only have 3 (1 is medical). The first is for $712, the second is for 11,000, then the medical is for 1,100. I burned all major credit card companies and have only manage to get Capital One to give me another chance. I’ve had my card for 1 year and can’t get an increase to save my life!

Current Cards:

First Savings 1000/1500

Legacy 1200/1500

Blaze 1100/1500

Walmart 0/200

Chevron 0/300

Target 75/200, not reporting yet

Kay 320/5000

Delta Gold 250/1000

Marathon 1500/3000, program closing in February

Ulta 0/1750

Torrid 0/2550

Gamestop 0/1500

Victoria Secret 0/4100

Merrick 48/700

Credit One 39/500, not reporting yet

Kohls 0/2500

I know that’s a lot of cards, but my goal is to get visa and MasterCards and start closing store cards. The only card I have that has no AF is Capital One and store cards. My scores are EX 650, TU 646, EQ 641 and my UTI is around 18%.

What cards can I get or try to get to get to start replacing these cards? I want to get a secured card from BB&T or Wells Fargo. Any opinions? I can’t get Discover because I had a prior account that went to collections.

Re: Rebuild help and struggle

Anonymous — Sat, 29 Dec 2018 07:20:02 GMT

It is a rather common question that you are asking. I would say the open collections remaining are significant especially the 11k. While your UTI overall may only be 18%, your balances are too high on at least 3 cards including the Legacy which is 80%. As far as FICO is concerned that is almost maxed. You are losing a significant amount of points from your score because of it. Capital One certainly does account reviews and can see your open collections and 3 high UTI cards.

Do you have the money to to take care of any of these collections? If not, at least pay down the 3 high cards before you try for an increase. It would only help. Is there any major creditor out there that wasn't burned? There are prequals for many of the sites out there. It can't hurt to try and see if anything pops up. It is only a SP so there are no consequences for filling in the info. Even though you burned Discover, I would still try their prequal even if it is secured.

Re: Rebuild help and struggle

DIYcredit — Sat, 29 Dec 2018 07:57:40 GMT

WOW! that's allot of cards.First of all every time you open a new account you get dinged and also you get dinged for the hard inquiry.I would hold off on getting new cards right now.I would use the capital one and maybe use a store card to build a solid history.And qualify for better cards down the road.

Re: Rebuild help and struggle

Anonymous — Sat, 29 Dec 2018 08:05:06 GMT

@overmedicated

I currently can’t pay off the $11K collection and I’ve called numerous times to get a settlement and they only offered $1K off. In the middle of January I will pay off ALL credit cards and use them for monthly bills.

Ive tried Discover prequalified site and its denied every time and the letter states Prior Exsisting Account. I tried calling and they see the account was paid, and just tells me to try again in 8 days.

I burned Capital One, Citi, Discover, Synchrony, Credit One. Some of those companies has more than one account. I got an AMEX Delta Gold with a SL $1K. Ive read on here that’s barely accepting and a lot of people’s don't grow. I’ve tried Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Chase, Citi’s prequalified, my local credit union with not luck anywhere.

The 3 cards with the high balances also have a $75 AF per card, so my goal is to get cards with lower, or no AF and close those. Those cards also are at the highest credit limit available.

I have worked hard on my rebuild and have brought my score up over 100 points and it is mediocre, but still feels like a bummer I don’t have anything to show for my hard work. I know that $11K collections will hold me down for several more years.

Re: Rebuild help and struggle

Anonymous — Sat, 29 Dec 2018 08:09:26 GMT

@DIYCredit

I know that’s a lot of cards, but the non store cards have AF, so I was hoping to find cards without AF to replace those. I have a goal in mind to not apply for any credit for a year and work with what I have, except maybe a new car later in the year. I also didn’t want to close the cards with AF’s and lose the trade line for my UTI.

Re: Rebuild help and struggle

Jnbmom — Sat, 29 Dec 2018 09:59:59 GMT

I agree with the others I would not open any more cards and pay them down is a great idea.

Burning citibank, they will blacklist you for many many years , it took me 13 years to get back with them and even now I still get denied for other citi products.

Who is the 11K collection with? Is it past the SOL? that amount they could easily try and sue you.

Re: Rebuild help and struggle

FireMedic1 — Sat, 29 Dec 2018 09:56:30 GMT

OM gave great advise. Wish you could have came here sooner before all those cards were obtained. The damage is done unfortunately from all the HP's and new accounts. Yes get those high util cards down quick. There are some points to be gained. 11k collection I dont think will go away without some kind of fight to get the $. Who's owed and what CA is it?

After you pay down the CC's next month. Then start to trim the fat. Close down the smaller CL cards with AF's. Wont hurt your AAoA. Then you can save that $ and apply it to the collection. Its wasting money on AF's almost like paying interest on a card. Cap1 is bucketed and it isnt going to move much until things are under control. If it's the Plat. Upgrade it to the QS. Get some $ back for whats being lost to AF's.

Re: Rebuild help and struggle

tparks5961 — Sat, 29 Dec 2018 16:18:02 GMT

Hey my friend,

I can speak from experience and let you know the collection will be with you for 7 years. If they're updating monthly, it will also affect your score for 7 years.

I had a $6400.00 default in 2012 that falls off next year and it's probably holding my score down 100 points. I should have paid it off sooner.

IMHO, you have 4 cards to start your rebuild. The Capital One, credit one, Merrick and Amex.. The Amex card and capital one cards will be your only keeper cards out of the 17 cards that you have listed, and should really be the only cards you're using. You should make a couple of small monthly purchases with your credit one, capital one and merrick card, pay them off before they report a balance and EVERY OTHER credit card purchases should be run through your American express card no exception. The card can grow and open the door to better cards within the American express family. I'd give anything to be able to have an AMEX card during my rebuild as would many other people. The opportunities you have with just that one card are significant.. no need to be down and flustered.

You dont want to be the guy in 2 years that said "I should have done it this way".

Again, this is only my opinion, but I would close all of the accounts except for the 4 that I listed and not apply for any credit for an entire year. There's no quick way to brute force or buy your way in to getting new credit, if there were I would have done it.

Sometimes I get upset.. For example, I've had my discover secured card with a $2500.00 limit (Max for the secured card) for over 2 years and it hasn't unsecured. I have a BBVA business secured card, a secured Regions Card and a $300.00 unsecured Capital one credit card. I deposited $97,000.00 in the bank last month and these guys have some nerve not trusting me with more.. This is how I think. But then I realize I was the one that put myself in this situation.. It wasn't the banks. I understand now the importance of what I had and I'll never miss another payment on anything again.

Hang in there things will eventually get better.

Re: Rebuild help and struggle

Anonymous — Sat, 29 Dec 2018 17:15:25 GMT

@Jnbmom

The $11K collection was original with Snychrony for a motorcycle. I defaulted in 2014, but the collection wasn’t sold until 2016 to Portfolio Recovery. That collection with them is listed as 2016. The account is past SOL, so they can’t sue.

Re: Rebuild help and struggle

Anonymous — Sat, 29 Dec 2018 17:18:45 GMT

@Firemedic1

The collection is with Portfolio Recovery. It’s past SOL. The account was originally with Synchrony for a motorcycle.

As for the Capital One card, I just upgraded to the Quicksilver at the beginning of this month.

Re: Rebuild help and struggle

Anonymous — Sat, 29 Dec 2018 17:30:38 GMT

@tparks5961

Thank you for the support. I think I’m going to take your advice, but maybe leave the Target and Kay Card as well. The Kay card has a $5K limit and will come in handy throughout the year. I was thinking about keeping the Target card in hopes one day it will graduate to a Mastercard, plus I just opened both of those accounts. Kay was last month and Target was a week ago.

I like Ike the idea of running a lot through the AMEX card, but many places in the town I live doesn’t accept AMEX and only two of my monthly bills will accept that as a payment. The other monthly bills I put on Capital One since it’s been changed to a Quicksilver.

When I was approved for the AMEX, I also fell out of my chair! I hope it grows though. I’ve read on here a lot of people with SL of $1K are hard to grown.

Re: Rebuild help and struggle

CaptCami — Thu, 03 Jan 2019 01:49:01 GMT

If you log in to your capital one account and go to the "I want to..." section, there is an option to "view online documents." Every time you request a CLI they will document it there and give you the exact reasons they declined you.

I've tried twice in the last 6 months and the reasons were different each time. They gave me 3 unique reasons for each request. :/ Hope this helps.