What gives, Discover? Advice appreciated...

[Tapdnsr25]

Discover has been sending me prequalified offers for a while now, like pretty constantly actually, but when I do the pre-approval "app" it only comes back with the secured card. According to Experian, their FICO 8 is 715...Bankcard 8 is 714 (and Bankcard 2 is 803, which I like a lot better! lol).  When EX showed me the free scores for the other 2 last week, EQ was at 712, and TU was at 689 because my 2% utilization hadn't updated at that point. However I can assume that it has by now because CK's FAKO's are both at 690 now. My other VS 3.0 score (EX) is at 689, so I am assuming the FICO 8 for all 3 CRB's is around 712-715 right now. So what gives? I have a thin file, which I've read here Discover actually likes. File currently consists of Meijer Comenity card (my oldest, sitting at 0%), a CreditOne card (2nd oldest, at 10%), and a Kohl's card (my newest, at 0%). I have an auto loan (roughly 1.5 yrs in and at 82%), and 2 personal loans, one of which is at 95% "utilization" and the other is reporting at 46% (though that's not actually right). 

Unfortunately, when I signed up for automatic payments on WFDS's website, it didn't "take" according to the CSR, which I wasn't made aware of until after they had reported it 30 days late. (Don't even get me started.) That is my one and only derog on my entire file. 

So could it be my income then? I kind of assume Discover must like everything else they see in their SP's because they send me something on a weekly basis...there have even been times where they sent me 3 offers a week. Even Experian's site keeps suggesting the Discover IT to me. Any insight as to what they're seeing that they don't like? 

[Tapdnsr25]

Forgot to list inquiries...

On EX, there are 4, only 1 within the past year. 

TU has 15 (cringe)...almost all of which are from car shopping before I knew better. 3 of them within the past year

EQ has 9 (cringe again)...ALL of which are from car shopping as well, and 1 was within the past year

[jl4]

The car shopping inquiries aren't likely to be a huge deal. For scoring, they group together as one and any UW can see they were for a singular purpose. 

What does your Discover Scorecard look like? 

[Tapdnsr25]

Scorecard matches EX...715. So I am assuming that their SP data is up to date.

While I know that auto inquiries theoretically get lumped together, I doubt that is truly the case in many situations, as several of them on mine, for example, are not coded as auto applications. (But I know they definitely were.) I also don't think that info gets looked at with a SP, so only the # of inquiries gets considered in such cases. After all, it's just a computer "looking at" the data. So auto apps not coded as such, don't get counted as such either. Hmm...wonder if that fact could be disputed at least?

[UpperNwGuy]

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@Tapdnsr25 wrote:

Unfortunately, when I signed up for automatic payments on WFDS's website, it didn't "take" according to the CSR, which I wasn't made aware of until after they had reported it 30 days late. (Don't even get me started.) That is my one and only derog on my entire file. 

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How long ago did this happen?

[Anonymous]

The criteria to determine who gets a mailer is relatively slim yet complicated in some ways.  Market demographics play a role (your neighborhood), SP FICO (not CK, or VS), and possibly public records from LexisNexis or another vendor.  Some banks are direct marketers, but most use third party marketing companies.  These marketing companies are paid in a number of ways.  They receive money for every application received, every application received that is approved and accelerators during holidays and when they exceed goals.  It benefits them to send you lots of mailers - especially when you appear to qualify - eventually you'll bite.  It's just a numbers game.

There are others on this forum who know how this works far better than I do.  With any luck one of them will add or correct me.

[Tapdnsr25]

According to EX, 1 yr 3 months

[Anonymous]

I had a similar situation with Discover and decided to give it 6months. I’d check prequal site every 10 days and around month 4, I was prequalified for an unsecured card. My scores at the time were similar to yours but no baddies and only 3 inquiries. I don’t know if this data helps but I felt like it was worth waiting.

[Tapdnsr25]

I checked the pre-approval page again today, and this time was shown It and Chrome. So I went for the It....$7,500 SL! I felt like I was gonna faint! Might be noteworthy that I got to the pre-approval page this time by going through the link in my Discover Scorecard page (versus just going straight to it). I can't imagine it would really matter, but maybe they pull older info from the latter and using the Scorecard link, it made it pull that newer info???

[Shadowfactor]

Congrats on the approval.