Yep, you read that right - from March 10, 2020, through July 16, 2021 (when I was finally approved), I applied for the Apple Card 45 times. It was an easy and free way to check my TU9 score throughout my ongoing rebuild and, as far as I can tell, there have been no consequences as until you accept it's an SP. I've kept fairly detailed notes on denial reasons, my scores, and milestone times from previous delinquencies (and I believe I'm on the application high scores), so I wanted to share some lessons learned with the great folks here. Feel free to ask any follow-up questions and I'll try to respond or share more information to the best of my abilities.
Quick background: Current EX8 score of 673. Had a tough time keeping up with CCs in 2019 and ended up with a few closed, 1 charged off, and a handful of delinquences (from 60-120 days). Oldest Discover card has perfect payment history for 7 years, also have a couple new cards also with no delinquencies, so the focus was cleaning the mistakes of the latter half of 2019. Annual income ~$120k and happy to say I've now paid off all the delinquences and have been debt-free for a few months, though facing a few years of waiting until things fall off my report.
When I got approved ($2.5k SL, 21.99% APR):
- I applied on my phone, through Apple Wallet. I had tried on apple website ("Shopping Cart Trick") previously, but had ID issues - more below.
- Most recent TU9 was 662 from ~2 weeks prior. TU8 was 659 and had stayed there for a couple weeks as well.
- 2 years since 3 accounts were closed in 2019 (each at least 30-days delinquent). 18 months since account was charged off (has been paid in full and TU report does not have CO mark, just said "closed, paid in full, was a charge off").
- I had applied 2x in the prior 30-day window.
- Most recent inquiry was 3 months prior.
- Balances reported on 3/4 open cards, totaling <10% of available CL. Monthly DTI around 15%.
When I was denied:
- 7 times I received an error, either "too many inquiries" or "unable to verify."
- All of the latter ID issues came when using the website, either on my phone or computer. Was able to sign in with Apple ID, even scan ID pictures, but no dice.
- In 2020, the "too many" occurred when I applied 5x in the prior 30 days. In 2021, it occurred when I applied 4x in the prior 30 days. And, there was a time in 2020 when I applied 4x in the prior 30 days and did not receive a "too many" message.
- From 3/20 to 12/20, GS denial reasons were: (1) serious delinquency, (2) length of time accounts have been established, (3) proportion of balances too high.
- First TU9 score was 528.
- All 3 reasons were replaced by "you have recently experienced a charge off" and "...been past due" on 12/27/2020. Past due reason disappeared on 02/03/2020, 14 months after last reported delinquency.
- "Time since delinquency is too recent or unknown" also appeared but only on the first denial (included at 3 months after, but not 4).
- Balances ranged from >100% of my total CL at the start (large CL account closed with balance on payment plan) to <5% in October.
- I had between 2-6 hard inquiries on my TU report during the process. I went 6 months (from 5/20-12/20) to see whether that would remove the score code, but it did not.
@CommuneNefas wrote:Yep, you read that right - from March 10, 2020, through July 16, 2021 (when I was finally approved), I applied for the Apple Card 45 times.
I can't really add anything, but I thought that was hilarious. Mainly because before I was approved I'd probably tried a good two dozen or more times. In my case my last baddy was just under 7 years old, but had 120% usage and reported 90 days late religously since 2014 - every month, like clockwork. The day it dropped off was the day they approved me for $3k.
@CommuneNefas wrote:Yep, you read that right - from March 10, 2020, through July 16, 2021 (when I was finally approved), I applied for the Apple Card 45 times.
Wow! We applied for P2 (my wife) about 5 times, with no success. We finally dropped it for now. Kudos on the persistance, and congratulations!
My wife's application always fails at identity verification. It makes it sound like the photos of her driver's license aren't high enough quality. We tried it with a couple different phones, as well as scanning it on a flatbed scanner and uploading the photos. Nothing works.
I admire your persistence, and congrats on the new card and rebuild thus far!
