@Anonymous wrote:
Hi! I am two years post chapter 7 right now. My credit was perfect beforehand, FICO was around 812. The bankruptcy was the result of losing a small personal business (long story). Not a whole lot even got listed as delinquent. It was more a safety net thing I had to do, plus a small business loan I had personally signed for. My credit report shows very little negative....no delinquent reports. Only one public record, and then a shorter credit history since I closed everything down before filing.
I immediately got and paid off a 12 month secured loan with my bank. I also got a Capital One card, and the balance has since been raised. Also a Paypal credit account and the balance was raised. My name is also back on a couple good accounts my husband has, although his credit isn't stellar due to the infamous cosigning for an untrustworthy family member thing.
i don't have my current FICO. My "guesstimate" scores from Capital One and Credit Karma range from 689 to 715.
I would like to get a nice rewards card, but I don't want a lot of hard inquiries. Amazon auto rejects people with a bankruptcy. Do all rewards cards do that? Will I have to wait the full 7-10 years, even if my credit score rebounds? I guess I'm looking for my next step in building my credit, other than paying off some previous family debt we have that had nothing to do with the bankruptcy. I'm not ready to get a car loan right now, either. I should add that my CCs are low limits because we do not make a whole lot of money right now. :-/ Particularly me, because I only have part time work at the moment. We also have family CC debt of around $12,000 that needs to be paid off, so we don't show a lot of available credit, which is not good. Our cars are both paid for though.
Thanks for any tips!
Get a second Capital One card (QS or Venture if your FICO scores are high 600's), and you can get your current Cap One card upgraded to Reward status (1.5% cashback on all purchases). You might also be interested in the Barclays Reward card (2% on gas, groceries and utilities, 1% on everything else). If you have more than a year of current credit card payment history they will most likely approve you.
If the AU accounts you are on have high balances, you are better off removing yourself from them. Balances are a huge portion of scoring, so there's no sense in letting high balances ding both of your scores. If you have no current installment accounts, you would also benefit from opening an account with SDFCU and getting a secured loan for $500. They will go 36 months at 3.99% so the payments are under $15.
If you're serious about rebuilding IMO, you need to know your true credit scores first. The cheapest way to do that is to spend $1 on a 7-day trial with CreditCheck Total. You'll have daily report/score for EX and monthly updates for TU and EQ. When you call or canel online before your trial ends, you'll be offered 50% to keep it ($15/mo instead of $30/mo).