I have a question that I've searched here for an answer but haven't found it. My husband & I are rebuilding our credit after a huge bump in the road. We stopped paying all our credit cards to keep our house out of foreclosure in 2008 but ended up having to do a short sale in early 2010. Now he has retired, got a cash payout as well as a monthly pension check & we've been working to clean up our credit this last year. We've been able to obtain an FHA mortgage & will be closing in a couple of weeks. After the closing he needs to obtain a couple of credit cards to start building his scores. They are currently 628, 631 & 660 but appear to have stagnated because he has no credit utilization to score - he currently only has my car payment as an open account. My question is what direction should he go in? We use Credit Karma as a tool to see where we are at in our rebuild. CK has recommended a Chase Freedom Card & a Barclaycard Rewards MC but after reading reviews from others that have had them I'm a bit apprehensive on either of them. I have read where many people have had the card for a few months, used it, paid it off each month, go to use it & it's denied because it's been closed with no warning. They complain of the card companies doing HP's that they weren't aware of looking at their overall credit usage & closing it because they see a lot of usage with other cards - most of these people had usage below 10%. While I understand the banks wanting to cover themselves we can't take the risk of, for instance, traveling & going to rent a car or get a hotel room & having them pull this stuff. So what I'm wondering is does anyone have a recommendation as to what he can apply for to avoid this from happening? I have a Credit One Bank Visa that has been good to me but they have a high annual fee & really only want to have it until I can establish more positive credit (hopefully 1 more year). We were hoping to find a less expensive fee, if any. TIA!! 
If those scores are Ficos I would try to get in with a few CUs they are much more forgiving than banks. You can look for ones locally and there are some on the National level as well DCU, NASA, SDFCU, NFCU if you can get in is a great one.
@gdale6 wrote:If those scores are Ficos I would try to get in with a few CUs they are much more forgiving than banks. You can look for ones locally and there are some on the National level as well DCU, NASA, SDFCU, NFCU if you can get in is a great one.
+1 CU is best bet get 2-3 and or mix in a Cap1 card let stew for 6 months to a year and then he should be in a better position for the cards you mentioned. Good luck
Yes, these scores are true FICOs....these were the scores pulled by our mortgage rep on 6/4. And we do belong to a local CU here in SW FL but even though we've had an account with them for 30 yrs., multiple loans & a VISA that was always paid on time & is paid in full (not a charge-off) they closed that account due to our circumstances at the time and aren't interested in helping us now. We do belong to USAA....I just don't know how they are about this stuff. He also has his retirement rollover funds with Fidelity Investments & I know they have a VISA & Amex they offer. I'm wondering if that's a direction we should try? BTW - one of the charge-offs in 2009 was with Capital One so I'm sure they're not interested in granting us anything. 
@Boyzmom wrote:Yes, these scores are true FICOs....these were the scores pulled by our mortgage rep on 6/4. And we do belong to a local CU here in SW FL but even though we've had an account with them for 30 yrs., multiple loans & a VISA that was always paid on time & is paid in full (not a charge-off) they closed that account due to our circumstances at the time and aren't interested in helping us now. We do belong to USAA....I just don't know how they are about this stuff. He also has his retirement rollover funds with Fidelity Investments & I know they have a VISA & Amex they offer. I'm wondering if that's a direction we should try? BTW - one of the charge-offs in 2009 was with Capital One so I'm sure they're not interested in granting us anything.
I would be looking for another CU to do business with in that case... USAA is known to be friendly to rebuilders as long as they have not been stuffed before.. Cap-1 does forgive after a period of time and there are people on this board who have obtained new cards with them with older previous COs reporting though I would not try till it goes past 5 years from CO.
@gdale6 wrote:
@Boyzmom wrote:Yes, these scores are true FICOs....these were the scores pulled by our mortgage rep on 6/4. And we do belong to a local CU here in SW FL but even though we've had an account with them for 30 yrs., multiple loans & a VISA that was always paid on time & is paid in full (not a charge-off) they closed that account due to our circumstances at the time and aren't interested in helping us now. We do belong to USAA....I just don't know how they are about this stuff. He also has his retirement rollover funds with Fidelity Investments & I know they have a VISA & Amex they offer. I'm wondering if that's a direction we should try? BTW - one of the charge-offs in 2009 was with Capital One so I'm sure they're not interested in granting us anything.
I would be looking for another CU to do business with in that case... USAA is known to be friendly to rebuilders as long as they have not been stuffed before.. Cap-1 does forgive after a period of time and there are people on this board who have obtained new cards with them with older previous COs reporting though I would not try till it goes past 5 years from CO.
Thanks gdale6! Both good points to know! My husband has talked of giving our CU (Suncoast CU) one more chance after this mortgage closes. If they are unwilling to help us he wants to put our money in USAA instead. We've left it with Suncoast up to this point out of convenience. And I do know we have passed the SOL with our Cap 1 accts. so we'll have to keep that in the back of our minds for later. Thanks so much for the advice!