I have four Synchrony cards, each with a pretty small credit line... $2500 to $5000. I was drinking a bit too much last night and decided to apply for the Venmo card. Not sure why. Anyway, I unfroze Transunion and applied. "We won't do a hard pull unless you're approved" and all that. After hitting the "submit" button it paused for a moment then said something about me uploading photos of driver's license and social security card, which I did. Then it paused again and said something like "Your application has been submitted and we will be in touch."
I figured it was going to be a denial since I have about 20 inquiries on my Transunion and have opened 18 cards in the past 24 months, so I re-froze my Transunion.
Today I wake up to a couple of odd emails. One, from Credit Karma, tells me that there's been an attempt to pull my Transunion but it was blocked due to the freeze. The second is one from Venmo telling me to open the Venmo app. I do so and it tells me that I've been approved for an $11,000 credit line. 🧐
Usually when a new hard pull hits my report, my phone lights up like a Christmas tree as I get a slew of emails and notifications from all my (free) credit monitoring services. So it doesn't appear there was a successful hard pull. Kind of weird.
We'll see if the SL sticks, because I've read one person say that he was approved for $XX,XXX limit but then when the card arrived the limit had been slashed by half or so.
I forget which score Synchrony pulls for approvals (I know it uses Vantagescore 4.0 for some things) but all my credit scores have dipped due to all the cards recently opened and is sitting somewhere in the (very) low 700s. Even moreso, the credit profile itself is completely trashed with so many new accounts as well as the fact that I had to make a recent large purchase and my overall utilization has ballooned to ~12% whereas I always try to keep it around 5%. So I'm pretty surprised about the approval.
51-year-old licensed banking and finance attorney. Series 65 registered investment advisor. Southern California. I am happy to educate anyone under the age of 40 but I will not argue with you because you know nothing and I have better things to do. I have been doing this longer than you've been alive. If you want my advice, you can pay me with sincere gratitude or money, and not necessarily in that order.
Starting Score: 789
