I strongly suggest that anybody who wants to improve their credit score NOT get a CFNA credit card. I know they are the credit company who provides cards for Firestone and Plaza Tire Service. I would guess there are other companies as well. Before applying for a card please make sure you ask if it is CFNA.
The problem is this -- they do not report credit limits to the bureaus. They report your current balance to all three bureaus, but report no limit. An essential part of raising your credit score is having a favorable debt to credit ratio. This ranges anywhere from 20%-35% depending on who you ask. If you have a $1 balance on a CFNA card, your debt to credit ratio on that account is infinitely negative because you're debt is $1 and your credit limit is unreported (which is considered ZERO by the bureaus).
I sent a few letters to their customer service department, and their responses were abysmal. I paid off the card just now, and will be canceling it as soon as the payment goes through. I see no reason in keeping a card that I can't use. My credit limit is $1200 and my balance is $159 but since they don't report a limit my overall debt to credit ratio is 75%. My only other credit card has a $200 limit so it's showing my overall debt as $159 and my overall available credit as $200. It should be $159 versus $1400 which would be about 11%. CFNA refuses to do anything about it since they are "not required by law to report credit limits". So much for customer service. I'm glad I paid it off before they got any of my money.
Some of the credit bureaus DO show "high balance" in place of credit limit when computing your FICO score. Even so, it is not fair to force the consumer to make a large purchase just to show a decent figure in this equation. I've also heard that after any change to your actual credit limit such as an increase or decrease this amount goes back to "zero" or "unreported" since everything on the account resets in the report to the bureaus. Some credit bureaus just list the limit as "zero" or "unreported" regardless of high balance if an actual credit limit isn't provided by the creditor.
I'm going to try to spread the word as best I can that this is a horrible practice and extremely bad customer service. I opened this account hoping to increase my credit score, and it has dropped it by over 20 points with all three bureaus. I've spent a couple years trying to raise my scores and this just set me back a good six months. The inquiry alone will haunt me for two years.
I'm curious if sending a statement to the credit bureaus showing my limit will cause them to show my true credit limit. I've done quite a bit of searching and can't find much information on this. I know creditors aren't required by law to report credit limits. I also know the credit bureaus are required by the FCRA to report as much information as they can to ensure their reports are as accurate as possible. So will they update the information if I provide it myself? The only report I've seen of this is one person who said the information was updated for a few months then went back to zero. I really wanted to use this account to help improve my FICO score. Due to the fact that I have such a limited credit history after my bankruptcy a couple of years ago, $1200 of available unutilized credit would make a fairly large impact on my score, and in turn allow more creditors to extend offers to me.
