@Anonymous wrote:Hi all of you who have been around; I'll learn from you and Philip! I have a 3 questions about credit cards:
1. I've been told that the FICO score banks use when determining my eligibility, depends on which FICO score they pull when I apply. Is there any control that I have over this or am I at their mercy?
2. Philip said in one of the lessons VERY early on, was that we should get 3-5 credit cards. I have my debit card which I use most of the time, but I never have 3, let alone 5! Are the credit card 'police' going to come and take me away and throw away the key if I only get 1 card? Or is this 3-5 cards, part of a broader plan to restablish credit, in which case I'll get 3-5 cards,
3. I used to have 6 cards, but I paid them off in full every month and NEVER carried a balance. He just spoke (I think it is lesson #3) of a rule (I can't think of the name), where you'r balance should NEVER exceed 30% of your limit. Does that mean AT NO TIME in your billing cycle, should you exceed that magical 30%?
Teamrns
who's Philip? is that little voice in your head? 
kidding kidding! I think credit card company pulls from certain credit reporting agency and you can't really choose which on they pull the record from.
@Anonymous wrote:Hi all of you who have been around; I'll learn from you and Philip! I have a 3 questions about credit cards:
1. I've been told that the FICO score banks use when determining my eligibility, depends on which FICO score they pull when I apply. Is there any control that I have over this or am I at their mercy?
2. Philip said in one of the lessons VERY early on, was that we should get 3-5 credit cards. I have my debit card which I use most of the time, but I never have 3, let alone 5! Are the credit card 'police' going to come and take me away and throw away the key if I only get 1 card? Or is this 3-5 cards, part of a broader plan to restablish credit, in which case I'll get 3-5 cards,
3. I used to have 6 cards, but I paid them off in full every month and NEVER carried a balance. He just spoke (I think it is lesson #3) of a rule (I can't think of the name), where you'r balance should NEVER exceed 30% of your limit. Does that mean AT NO TIME in your billing cycle, should you exceed that magical 30%?
Teamrns
1) Forget what this Phillip person said.
2) You can use that Debit card all you want. For decades even. But it is still NOT credit, and doesn't establish or grow your credit reports or score. Do you actually have a Credit card, or a loan, in the past 10 years? If so, tell us exactly which cards, when you obtained them, their credit limits, and how much you have charged on each card/loan. If not, you have no credit reports and no FICO score.
3) You can buy your credit score from a lot of places, including the 3 main credit bureaus (assuming you've had credit for at least 6 months). However, the scores most places sell you, aren't the scores you want. You can buy real scores from Myfico.com, but you probably don't need those either. When you are starting out, you can pretty much figure out when you have a shot at a card, and when you apply if you are denied they will send you your score via US Mail. If you are approved, but not with the best terms, they also send you your score. In other words, you're just starting out, so you can pretty much count on them sending you the score afterwards.
Well, we need to know the answers to #2 before we can give more advice.
@Anonymous wrote:@Whoops! I should have prefaced my question with the fact that I am emerging from bankruptcy, and I included ALL cards except my debit in the bankruptcy. So, I have NO cards whatsoever. I did have a Target card with LOC $15,000, BOA card with LOC of $18,000 3 Chase cards with LOC @$5K each, Capital One MC with $3000 limit and PayPal cc with $700 LOC. I include all of these cards in our chapter 7 bankruptcy which was discharged and am in the process of rebuilding my credit. 2 CRA report 615 and TU reports 595. 'Philip' is Philip THrone who appears in many of these tapes.
When was the bankruptcy discharged? Some companies are known to be more tolerant of bankruptcy, but it does depend how long ago it was.
You cannot control what credit report(s) are pulled. They often do vary, but you can sometimes make an educated guess. Check the Credit Pulls Database, or Who Gave Me Credit, for reports on what people have recently reported as being pulled.
I believe the 3-5 credit card recommendation, is so you can get 3-5 postive credit lines reporting every month. In other words, get some positive credit reporting to dilute the bad stuff that is already there.
That 30% rule is probably for people recovering from bankruptcy and such. You need cards right now, but they are not so that you can have the convienience of credit. You need them so that you can show that you are squeaky-clean on your credit reports now. Anything that even hints like you are comfortable in using most of a credit cards limit is going to look real bad with the bankruptcy on your reports... So having cards and not using them doesn't prove you are responsible, but having cards and using then maybe 10% each month and always paying in full, that shows you can and will use your cards responsibly.
Once that bankruptcy and all baddies are off your reports, then you can afford to occasionally use more of a card. I once intentionally let a card report 55% usage before paying it off, just to set a high usage on my credit report for that card. It was only $1550 or so, but it was a card with only a $2800 limit, so letting one card report in the 50's plummeted my fico score at least 20 points (I was expecting the score to increase slightly due to 3 inquiries becomming more than a year old, instead it went down 20). And that is with pristine, but very short, credit reports.