PenFed (Shocked)

[xkaosx]

On a sleepy dreary night searching forums and looking for ideas on how to refi my 19% car loan.

I saw PenFed was fairly generous for approvals so I said screw it. My current info listed below

2012 or so started a chap 13 fell behind on payments after a layoff and had to convert to a chap 7 which was discharged like 5/2017

I immediately got the normal start cards (Indigo, Credit One, First Future) also a car loan and last month I just got approve 1k for Capital One. (all cards combined about 3000$ limit and under 20% usage. LOTS of inq's over the last 1-2 years. Dont know who they pulled but it wasnt Experian because I didnt get an alert.

Current Scores are like 650-680

Apply for card and I am shocked with a 10k Pathfinder Rewards Amex

Is this some kind of sick joke where they are going to look over something and revoke it? haha

[Anonymous]

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@xkaosx wrote:

On a sleepy dreary night searching forums and looking for ideas on how to refi my 19% car loan.

I saw PenFed was fairly generous for approvals so I said screw it. My current info listed below

2012 or so started a chap 13 fell behind on payments after a layoff and had to convert to a chap 7 which was discharged like 5/2017

I immediately got the normal start cards (Indigo, Credit One, First Future) also a car loan and last month I just got approve 1k for Capital One. (all cards combined about 3000$ limit and under 20% usage. LOTS of inq's over the last 1-2 years. Dont know who they pulled but it wasnt Experian because I didnt get an alert.

Current Scores are like 650-680

Apply for card and I am shocked with a 10k Pathfinder Rewards Amex

Is this some kind of sick joke where they are going to look over something and revoke it? haha

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Congratulations on your Amex Pathfinder approval.  You actually got the maximum amount PenFed gives to new members and they pull Equifax FICO 9 score.

[Anonymous]

Congrats on the approval!

[xkaosx]

I should prob get some advice then- they offered 12 months interest free balance transfer and 16.7% after which is still better than the 

rate on my car loan at 18.99%. Would I be able to balance transfer my car loan balance of about $5000?

[Anonymous]

Nice! Congratulations!!!

I applied for the same card with PenFed just last week with scores 684-714 and they told me to go kick rocks. When I called for a recon the guy was pretty much ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Even when I asked about a secured version. I was also turned down a year ago and that resulted in some tips, which I followed and exceeded, to no avail. My request for suggestions this time resulted in: "I don't know. Maybe try again in a year."

Glad to see you were able to get the service that I usually hear about because I was incredibly disappointed with the treatment I got.

[xkaosx]

Forgot i did all 3 in June and my Equifax is 688. Here were my details if you want to compare

Accounts Summary

Open Credit Cards	5
Open Retail Cards	3
Open Real Estate Loans	0
Open Installment Loans	1
Total Open Accounts	9
Accounts Ever Late	1
Collections Accounts	0
Time Since Negative	1 Year 4 Months
Average Account Age	6 Years 3 Months
Oldest Account	18 Years 1 Month

My Debt Summary

Credit and Retail Card Debt	$647
Real Estate Debt	$0
Installment Loans Debt	$5,480
Collections Debt	$0
Total Debt	$6,127

[AverageJoesCredit]

Congrats. If you dont mind sharing, what income do you report? The 2 factors that may have played in your favor is the lack of alot of credit and low dti. Because with a bk that means you joined dirty and for alot of us that holds us back. Well done

[xkaosx]

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@AverageJoesCredit wrote:
Congrats. If you dont mind sharing, what income do you report? The 2 factors that may have played in your favor is the lack of alot of credit and low dti. Because with a bk that means you joined dirty and for alot of us that holds us back. Well done

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61k

[sghosh5]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Nice! Congratulations!!!

I applied for the same card with PenFed just last week with scores 684-714 and they told me to go kick rocks. When I called for a recon the guy was pretty much ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Even when I asked about a secured version. I was also turned down a year ago and that resulted in some tips, which I followed and exceeded, to no avail. My request for suggestions this time resulted in: "I don't know. Maybe try again in a year."

Glad to see you were able to get the service that I usually hear about because I was incredibly disappointed with the treatment I got.

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You should have got their card unless you have ton of inquiries or new accounts, which is also why they dont want to increase my limit. But i am just a 3 month old member with them. 

[Anonymous]

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@xkaosx wrote:

I should prob get some advice then- they offered 12 months interest free balance transfer and 16.7% after which is still better than the 

rate on my car loan at 18.99%. Would I be able to balance transfer my car loan balance of about $5000?

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Super Congrats on your Pen Fed Pathfinder Amex $10,000 SL!

Credit card balance transfers are a "like for like" transaction,

which means you can only transfer CC balances from other cards.

If you just wanted to use your new Pathfinder card, you would

have to call Pen Fed and ask how much of your 10k SL is a cash advance

and get the % rate.The only drawback is that your initial utilization will be

at 50%. Personally, I wouldn't recommend it. There are better options.

Now that Pen Fed has hard pulled your Equifax FICO 9 score,

your hard pull is good for 30-90 days. So in your specific case,

you could apply for an auto refi loan or consolidation loan at a much

better rate than 18.99%. Contact Pen Fed for their exact rates.

Congrats again on your Amex Pathfinder approval.

Thanks so much for sharing!