@Anonymous wrote:
Hello Everyone,
I would like to get some advice on my credit. Let me give you some history real quick...
I am a 21 year old student/self - employed.
Early August 2010 - I tried applying for someone credit cards to help out in but was denied, because lake of credit history. CREDIT SCORE - 0
End of August 2010 - I finally spoke to BAO and opening a secured credit card with $1,000 limit. ( Increased it to $10,000 secured by sept.) CREDIT SCORE - 689
Mid Sept - Care credit $1,000
Late Sept - I opened a CITI secured card for $5,000. - CREDIT SCORE - 619 the score fell so much do to 80% utilization
I also got approved for a Capital one for -$ 500.
Recently I got some store cards for personal use - Lord& Taylor - $1100 & Bloomingdales - $1000
I tried applying for Business Credit cards and its not working, Chase Slate & Sapphire denied for Lake of history, credit increased too fast, current use ratio....and so on.
Amex - Gold card = denied
Amex - Blue = denied
discover - denied back in Sept
I PAY OFF ALL MY CREDIT CARDS IN FULL BEFORE THE DUE DATE !!!!
I am planning on opening another secured card next week from wells fargo, initial credit limit $7500 and then raise it to 10K by Jan.
I need advice though, how can I build my credit to high unsecured limits ??? Credit score as of today : 699 - I would like high limits so that in the event that I do charge 20-30K some months, my debt-income ratio doesnt go overboard.
Also I am planning to buy a car consigned with a family member in sept 2011. If I get approved, god willing !!!!! - A member had stated earlier that I should get a cosigner for car, from my experience I feel that bmw financial will not approve me due to various reasons i.e. age, income, length of credit, debt-income ratio, and the fact that I have never bought a car.
At this point I believe your immediate goal of having a credit grantor giving you $20 - $30k in unsecured credit is totally unrealistic. Most likely, from what you have written, any creditor today would view you as an accident waiting for a place to happen. Here's why:
1. Not counting any possible inquiries from your auto purchase, it looks like you have approximately 15+ relatively fresh inquiries -- all within a 6-month period. This is a huge red flag.
2. Still not counting any possible new auto loan, you have 7+ new accounts (tradelines) reporting -- all opened within the past 6 months. This is another big red flag.
3. You stated your utility is at about 80%. That might as well be the kiss of death.
The most intelligent course of action would be to stop applying and start taking care of the tradelines you do have now. Let the inquiries age for at least a year at which point many lenders start to worry less about them. Let your current accounts age. Many lenders count accounts as "new" until they are at least two years old. Do not let creditors report showing that you are anywhere over -- at most -- 10% of your available limit.
Once you have aged your accounts, gotten the inquiries off your credit report and brought your utilization down to an acceptable level, your secured cards would probably have unsecured by then and you could probably start seeing either decent CLIs and / or new creditors who are willing to extend $20k credit lines. Heck, some generous credit unions might even go higher.
Another thing to consider is being self-employed. Many creditors look suspiciously at those who are self-employed so you might want to be prepared for requests for IRS tax transcripts. If you say you earn, for example, a million dollars a year and the IRS transcript backs this up, you're in a very good position to ask for higher credit limits. If, however, the IRS transcript shows you earn less than you claim, you're probably lucky if they give you a $100 limit.
