Citi Forward for Students Recon

[CreditChampion]

Ok thanks so much!

[CreditWorld2013]

Sent! Let me know if it's the same or different from what you have.

[CreditChampion]

Oh that's Executive Response Unit....they transferred me to the office preaident(must be the same) and that department could not get me approved. So my last resort was leaving a message for the big man himself and he's suppose to call back. So hopefully I get a call sometime tomorrow.

[CreditWorld2013]

Citi, like most banks, have some strange formulas for approvals and denials. Have you tried for the Discover Student, Capital One Journey or MTV?

[CreditChampion]

None of those? Is MTV easier than a forward?

[Anonymous]

I don't really think you'll have much success at this point. You already escalated it higher than most people would, and they denied you. It's not like the president of the company (or his/her assistants) really want to deal with any of us customers, and they're not going to go out of their way to help us. Citi's denied people with longer credit histories and higher income for the same card, so your chances of getting them to overturn their denial at this point are pretty slim.

Of course, you could get lucky, since Citi seems to base their decisions on absolute nonsense.

I mean, don't get me wrong, it's a card I'd like to eventually get too. But I'm not sure why you think the president of a big financial institution would really want to take the time to help you out...

[Anonymous]

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@CreditChampion wrote:
None of those? Is MTV easier than a forward?

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It's Capital One.. so it's going to be easier to get approved for than any Citi product.

Honestly, with as strict as Citi is with their requirements, I'm not sure why they even bother offering student cards.

[CreditChampion]

Does cap pull all bureaus for their student card?

[Anonymous]

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@CreditChampion wrote:
Does cap pull all bureaus for their student card?

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More than likely, yes. The only thing I've heard them not triple-pulling for is the Venture card.

Whlle inquiries suck, keep in mind that they'll stop hurting your score after 12 months. Which isn't that long if you're just trying to get credit established now so you're better off in the long run.

A lot of the prime banks (Citi, BofA, Discover) have their student cards, but I'm not really sure what kind of students they're geared towards. Citi and BofA will both deny you based on limited credit history and refuse to go anywhere with a recon. Discover.. well, I haven't been denied by then, so I have no idea.

Overall it seems to be harder to get a student card these days since the credit card laws made it so you can't apply using household income, they place more strict rules on applicants under 21, etc. I always hear stories about older friends who went to college in the 90's that they basically had cards thrown at them by all the banks, but it sure feels a lot harder to get a student card now.

[Anonymous]

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@CreditChampion wrote:

I have been denied a recon through the office of the president because of limited credit history. I will not take no for answer, and have left a message at Mod Cut house voicemail. Anyone have any suggestions? I have a 2 month old Wells Farco Cash Back college card.

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Hello there.

Please don't post personal information in the public forums.

MarineVietVet, myFICO moderator

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Welcome to the forums!! While it's great that you want to start building your credit I would probably take it easy with the recon if I were you. 2 months is a very very short credit history, student or otherwise. As someone else mentioned, there are people with high FICOs and high incomes that get denied by Citi for fairly innocuous reasons. As a student who is new to credit it may not be in your best interest to rouse the Citi higher ups since they would probably view your calls as more of a nuisance than actually wanting to help if you were a high net worth client (sorry, just my honest opinion).

Citi generally looks for at least 12 months of credit history. I would suggest you garden for a bit. Allow your Wells Fargo account to mature and reapply then. You stand a really good chance of approval by doing that. I'm not sure any further recon would be beneficial to you at this moment. It may even be negative - you definitely don't want them flagging your file or anything that would ruin your chances for approval in the future.

Another poster mentioned the MTVu card. I believe this was discontinued recently and cardholders will be converted to Forward. As far as which is better (Freedom or Forward) they are so different in bonus categories that I actually have both cards to maximize rewards. 5 Thank You points = 3.3% cash back if you want to better compare these cards.