@creditmonger wrote:Why not wait til your score gets closer to 650 or so and apply for a modest installment loan just to get your foot in the door?
I guess that's what I'll have to do. I'm just getting frustrated because it feels like they aren't listening to me when I write to them. They just regurgitate the stuff about the system making the decision based on score, and they paste the stuff that was on my letter.
But they don't actually look at my credit file or pay attention to what I've said. It's like I'm getting a lazy employee every time or something.
This is what the most recent denial said:
NUMBER OF INQUIRIES ON CREDIT BUREAU REPORT
6 on TU in 2017 I believe. 4 are Navy Federal. There are about 18-20 total on each report, the majority from car shopping, and the majority are from late 2015 through 2016. I explained this.
LIMITED CREDIT EXPERIENCE
I explained to them I have several good accounts that are closed now that were all paid as agreed and are all still showing on my reports. They were all installment loans, never any lates, and the oldest is 4+ years. They don't seem to look at my credit report at all.
UTILIZATION OF BANKCARD CREDIT LINES IN LAST 12 MONTHS
One of my bank cards was high, yes. The other one not so much. What do they expect when my limits are insanely tiny? I could buy a Coca-Cola and use 99% of my limit. LOL (Okay, maybe not that bad, but still, one emergency bill and it's almost entirely used up.)
RATIO OF ACCOUNTS OPENED IN LAST 24 MONTHS TO ALL ACCOUNTS
I do have several new accounts this year, and I got most of them because Navy denied me by telling me I didn't have enough accounts. Several of my "new accounts" are AU accounts for which I am not financially responsible, and they report as such on my report. So I don't have nearly as many accounts as they claim I do, and they don't even seem to look at this.
They've also given cards to people who have much newer profiles and way more new accounts than I do. They've also been very generous to a lot of people on recon. They just don't seem to pay any attention to me at all. Just cut and paste every time.
I wish they had a feedback system like PenFed.
I even asked to have this escalated to a supervisor, but once again I literally just got a copy-paste of my denial that they sent last time. 
There's nothing so singularly spectacular about Navy Federal that makes it worthwhile to keep trying to get in with them, at the expense of looking elsewhere instead to find someone else more willing to work with you. Think of it almost like dating, you're looking for someone else with mutual interest. 
You have a nice pattern of score increases over the last 4 months, so IMO you might want to consider gardening for 2-3 months and using the time to make sure your utilization numbers are in as good a shape as you reasonably can, let your scores increase a bit more, and research the best 1-2 cards that you want to apply for. That would include looking at the creditpull database to see where the issuers typically pull from so you have 2 options that usually pull from different CRAs. App for the first card, if denied consider apping for the 2nd.
If you time it right you should be able to app before your credit reports reflect increased spending you might have from Christmas shopping.
Someone else might chime in with a better idea than mine, but the most important part here is that you need to have a plan that you can work with.
