topic Re: 2 DEEP Subprime Credit Card Offers in Rebuilding Your Credit

2 DEEP Subprime Credit Card Offers

Anonymous — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 15:30:25 GMT

Verve Mastercard (continental finance) 29.99apr $75 annual fee and a Monthly maintenance fee of $10 (waived for first year) Limit $300

First Premier Bank Platinum card 36%apr $99 program fee (paid upfront) $99 Annual fee and a waived for first year $8.25 ($99 yearly) Monthly fee. Limit $400
Would it hurt my score if I opened one or both and canceled after 12 months?

It pains me to fork over all that $ to such a **bleep** company but I'm in the position where I will do/pay almost anything to keep increasing my score. Currently I hardly use my cards (only charge on the capital one and PIF monthly before the statement date). The goal is to get a high score with a thick file so I can qualify for private student loans without a cosigner (in a worst case scenario way, I don't plan to get myself into a ton of debt) when I go back to school in 2022.

Just looking for any advice from likeminded people.

Re: 2 DEEP Subprime Credit Card Offers

Anonymous — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 16:33:45 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Verve Mastercard (continental finance) 29.99apr $75 annual fee and a Monthly maintenance fee of $10 (waived for first year) Limit $300

First Premier Bank Platinum card 36%apr $99 program fee (paid upfront) $99 Annual fee and a waived for first year $8.25 ($99 yearly) Monthly fee. Limit $400
Would it hurt my score if I opened one or both and canceled after 12 months?

It pains me to fork over all that $ to such a **bleep** company but I'm in the position where I will do/pay almost anything to keep increasing my score. Currently I hardly use my cards (only charge on the capital one and PIF monthly before the statement date). The goal is to get a high score with a thick file so I can qualify for private student loans without a cosigner (in a worst case scenario way, I don't plan to get myself into a ton of debt) when I go back to school in 2022.

Just looking for any advice from likeminded people.

I dont believe more credit cards are going to improve your scores. More credit does not equal better credit. I would not lower your age of your accounts by adding cards you are just going to turn around and shut down. You need to address whatever is keeping your scores down. Lates? Collections? Charge offs? What are your baddies?

Re: 2 DEEP Subprime Credit Card Offers

mycreditscoreisfair — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 16:48:43 GMT

I have to agree with @Anonymous

If you already have multiple cards and are using them wisely, why would you want more cards with ridiculous fees. Especially, considering your plan is to cancel them anyways?

Based on your signature, it seems that something hit your credit report between January 2020 and May 2020 that caused your score to drop 100+ points.

As @Anonymous said, you need to address whatever is dragging your score down. Don't just sign up for additional credit cards you don't need.

Re: 2 DEEP Subprime Credit Card Offers

Anonymous — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 17:40:03 GMT

OP, your siggy also show 3 new accounts (CCs) in 4 months. I would definitely slow your roll. You need to let your accounts age and work out the baddies. If you refuse to pay your 1 collection, your scires will plateau shortly with little room for growth. I know this because I have a few CAs I am waiting out over the next few months and even at perfect AZEO, no new accounts, etc, my scores really do not change unless the bad comes off my CRs.

Again, piling on more CCs will not improve your scores. You will need to PFD your CA or wait for it to age off.

Re: 2 DEEP Subprime Credit Card Offers

Anonymous — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 17:50:34 GMT

My personal experience has been a large increase followed by a small 5-12 point drop every card I opened. I only open cards that I get preapproved for leaving me with only one hard iquiry on my reports.

My plan was to follow the 5/24 rule and not open any more CCs after for 2 years. I plan to transition over to creditbuilder loans via Self & my CU ( so I can open a join loan with my mum).

Re: 2 DEEP Subprime Credit Card Offers

Anonymous — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 17:50:54 GMT

Fat fingered. January's score is from 2021 (fixed my sig). Does that change your opinion about more cards. I would only cancel either card (one not both) if they wouldn't waive one of the fees either monthly or yearly.
I can't get anymore secured CCs. My local CU denied me due to not having an account long enough and so did capital one (because I have an unsecured card). Both via prequilify so no hard inquiries.

Trying to save up for a large (2.5-4.5k) credit builder loan in 90ish days and considering a self lender too plus I'm on the waitlist for Kikoff.

My only baddie is a $898 collection from Convergent, I would rather spend the $898 in yearly subprime creditcard fees before I paid it off on princapal. Luckily doesn't show on my Transunion. My other issue is my Capital one not reporting on any of the 3 reports. Apperently a common issue for people who live in disaster areas, my billing zipcode has the highest covid rate in america recently so thats why I assume it isn't showing.

All cards always show 0% useage. Hopefully scores improve more when my Webbank LOC shows up in a few days.

Re: 2 DEEP Subprime Credit Card Offers

rostrow416 — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 18:01:08 GMT

Don't open any more. You have a solid foundation right now, all you need is time. More accounts will not help and shelling out cash on top of that will only hurt.

Re: 2 DEEP Subprime Credit Card Offers

OmarGB9 — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 19:06:12 GMT

I agree with everyone else. No more cards, just work with what you've got. Also, be sure to NOT have all cards report zero balance - that actually hurts you for having no utilization. Be sure to let one card report a small balance of about $5-$10.

And, I understand you have "moral reasons" for not paying the collection, but trying to negotiate a PFD and paying it would help boost your EX and EQ scores tremendously; probably up to about the same range as your TU.

Re: 2 DEEP Subprime Credit Card Offers

mycreditscoreisfair — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 19:12:16 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Fat fingered. January's score is from 2021 (fixed my sig). Does that change your opinion about more cards. I would only cancel either card (one not both) if they wouldn't waive one of the fees either monthly or yearly.
I can't get anymore secured CCs. My local CU denied me due to not having an account long enough and so did capital one (because I have an unsecured card). Both via prequilify so no hard inquiries.

Trying to save up for a large (2.5-4.5k) credit builder loan in 90ish days and considering a self lender too plus I'm on the waitlist for Kikoff.

My only baddie is a $898 collection from Convergent, I would rather spend the $898 in yearly subprime creditcard fees before I paid it off on princapal. Luckily doesn't show on my Transunion. My other issue is my Capital one not reporting on any of the 3 reports. Apperently a common issue for people who live in disaster areas, my billing zipcode has the highest covid rate in america recently so thats why I assume it isn't showing.

All cards always show 0% useage. Hopefully scores improve more when my Webbank LOC shows up in a few days.

That doesn't change my opinion. You still don't need new/more credit cards. Especially ones that are terrible and you're likely to close.

I don't know the 'moral reasons' for why you won't pay your collection debt, but that is by far the biggest issue that's holding down your credit score. At least, based on what you've shared so far. I can't even think of a moral reason for not paying a legitimate debt.

Kickoff, Self, or another credit builder loan may or may not help your credit. But they definitely won't negate the negative collection account.

When does the collection account fall off your report?

Re: 2 DEEP Subprime Credit Card Offers

Anonymous — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 19:50:37 GMT

Predatory subprime cards are a trap and should never be recommended. You need 3 cards to really start your rebuild. Go get some secured cards if need be. The reason subprimes are a trap is because there is a 99.99% chance you will close the account which does nothing for your average age of accounts, or your total credit lines, etc etc. Paying 30% PLUS annual fees plus all the other little late fee tricks they use on you is just not worth it. I've seen these predatory lenders do more harm to well intentioned customers than the benefit the customers got out of having a $300 limit card opened. Also less evidence for this but I think it hurts your entire profile more when a bank sees a bunch of these cards on your profile. Go use ANY bank with a secured card even if it doesn't graduate before you go with an annual fee trap card.

Re: 2 DEEP Subprime Credit Card Offers

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Jan 2021 01:06:28 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Fat fingered. January's score is from 2021 (fixed my sig). Does that change your opinion about more cards. I would only cancel either card (one not both) if they wouldn't waive one of the fees either monthly or yearly.
I can't get anymore secured CCs. My local CU denied me due to not having an account long enough and so did capital one (because I have an unsecured card). Both via prequilify so no hard inquiries.

Trying to save up for a large (2.5-4.5k) credit builder loan in 90ish days and considering a self lender too plus I'm on the waitlist for Kikoff.

My only baddie is a $898 collection from Convergent, I would rather spend the $898 in yearly subprime creditcard fees before I paid it off on princapal. Luckily doesn't show on my Transunion. My other issue is my Capital one not reporting on any of the 3 reports. Apperently a common issue for people who live in disaster areas, my billing zipcode has the highest covid rate in america recently so thats why I assume it isn't showing.

All cards always show 0% useage. Hopefully scores improve more when my Webbank LOC shows up in a few days.

As you can see by the 80-100 pt difference between TU and the other 2 bureaus, the single collection is holding you down. You will literally be wasting money of subprime cards.

Yes, when you go from having no credit to a couple cards, you will see a bug score increase. Having no revolving credit hurts your scores and your scores respond once you show you have have revolving credit. I saw this in mine and my SO's rebuilds. Bug jumps when cards start reporting and then that no longer happens as you keep adding cards. After the first 2 or maybe even 3 cards you no longer get those gains.

I still say no more cards. They will not help you any further at this point. I know this is not what you want to hear but this is the advice I have and what others also agree with from experience personally and from watching others (re)build journeys.

If you want an installment loan for credit mix, get 1. More than 1 will nit help your credit. Again, too much does not help. I would look into NFCU, if you can get in to get a SSL for 5 years, pay it down to under 10% and rude it out. That will give you the best boost from that aspect and for quite some time. Adding kikoff (which is still questionable) and/or Self will only helo you for a short time. Then you will need to get a new loan every year that will continually lower your age of accounts. Getting two is unwise because that is 2 accounts to lower the age when you only need 1. If you intend to have a personal loan, student loan, auto loan, mortgage, or other type of installment loan in 1- 2 years, then you can do a Self loan, but you cannot prepay it down under 10% and jeep the benefits for the whole 1-2 year period. Prepayment pushes up the loan end date. You would have to ride it out naturally, paying every month, and finally get the biggest boost in the final 1-2 months of the loan until it closes and you lose the points all together.

Also, I have been preapproved for a secured card with cap one even with having an unsecured card. Do you have more than 1 lower tier cap one card? That would likely be the reason then. Otherwise, they are saying to slow your roll with the accounts and they don't feel comfortablr rxtending you mkre credit. Patience is the hardest part of (re)building.

You can always get more secured cards, it just depends on where and timing. Did you try discover preapproval? My SO was not preapproved for Discover secured until after 3 months of his most recent card opening date. I still stand by you already acquired enough in a short span of time and need to wait a bit before you can get other, better cards. You need to let things age a bit

Good luck!

Re: 2 DEEP Subprime Credit Card Offers

sxa001 — Wed, 13 Jan 2021 05:39:20 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Fat fingered. January's score is from 2021 (fixed my sig). Does that change your opinion about more cards. I would only cancel either card (one not both) if they wouldn't waive one of the fees either monthly or yearly.
I can't get anymore secured CCs. My local CU denied me due to not having an account long enough and so did capital one (because I have an unsecured card). Both via prequilify so no hard inquiries.

Trying to save up for a large (2.5-4.5k) credit builder loan in 90ish days and considering a self lender too plus I'm on the waitlist for Kikoff.

My only baddie is a $898 collection from Convergent, I would rather spend the $898 in yearly subprime creditcard fees before I paid it off on princapal. Luckily doesn't show on my Transunion. My other issue is my Capital one not reporting on any of the 3 reports. Apperently a common issue for people who live in disaster areas, my billing zipcode has the highest covid rate in america recently so thats why I assume it isn't showing.

All cards always show 0% useage. Hopefully scores improve more when my Webbank LOC shows up in a few days.

Just be aware, being pre-qualified doesn't preclude a HP, you can get an SP pre-qualification and then when you apply it can me a HP with one or more CRAs.

Re: 2 DEEP Subprime Credit Card Offers

HRZ780 — Thu, 18 Feb 2021 18:54:11 GMT

I would avoid the fee harvester cards at all cost. Instead, save some money, join a credit union or two and use that saved up money to open up a secured card at the credit union(s). You'll eventually graduate those cards to non-secured, you'll earn the age and want to keep them down the road. Fee harvester cards do serve a purpose, but for longterm you will want to chuck them. Doing so, you lose that age. Might as well get the secured cards if not only for having cards you can keep around.

I opened up a secured card for $250. Then raised it to $2500 (added more funds) a few months in. They just graduated it to a full unsecured card this week and gave me a CLI of $2500. I have a total of $5000 CL on that card now and my initial $2500 used to secure the card has been kicked back to my savings. It hasn't even been a full 6 months yet. I'll be keeping the card. Best part, no fees to keep it around!!

Re: 2 DEEP Subprime Credit Card Offers

2Hogrider — Thu, 25 Feb 2021 04:46:57 GMT

I wouldn't get any subprime cards (which I call predatory cards) as they are vipers with their fees, I would suggest going to a local CU and opening an account and getting a secured card with them the fees you are willing to fork out for a predatory card would be enough for a secured card and most CU will put that in an interest-bearing savings account and they usually will report to all 3 bureaus. Then use the card to charge a tank of gas a month and pay it in full every month than in 6 months apply for a small personal loan with the CU. this will boost your credit scores considerably by having revolving and installment accounts plus it will build a relationship with the CU.

Re: 2 DEEP Subprime Credit Card Offers

BrooklynDrip — Thu, 25 Feb 2021 12:47:17 GMT

Do you owe the collection debt or not? I don’t understand how moral reasons play into this? If the answer is yes, then cutting off your nose to spite your face is hardly makes any sense.