I've really been hoping that I could repair my credit without using a secured card. But, nothing has worked for me yet lol.
Why Open Sky? Obviously I'm very new to the credit world 
Thanks for replying
@Anonymous wrote:I've really been hoping that I could repair my credit without using a secured card. But, nothing has worked for me yet lol.
Why Open Sky? Obviously I'm very new to the credit world
It is not a "Vulture" card which means they do not prey on people with bad credit by charging them excessive fees, high APRs, and anything else they can throw in to make money off of your situation. There are no hidden fees. It does have an annual fee of $35 but that is a small price to pay for establishing a positive history. Their current APR is less than 20% which I consider excellent for no history or not so great histories. My scores are good and my highest APR is 25.24%
@Anonymous wrote:Hello! This is my first forum post. I have lurked on myFico for years when looking for credit card qualifications and such but I decided that I need to make an account and seek out personal help.
I really made a mess of my credit over the past decade. I got out of the military about 10 years ago and seemingly did everything I could to ruin my credit...like a bull running through a china shop. I sought out help from Lexington Law about a year or so ago, and although they helped a little I still can't qualify for the most basic credit card. My scores are all over the place... EX is 630, EQ is 535, and TU is 513. I'm using the Experian Identityworks and credit monitoring to pull my FICO 8 scores.
I used a service called "Credit Boost" on the Experian site a few days ago and it raised my EX by about 70 points. So I decided to try and apply for one of the cards they recommended....Cap One Platinum. I was denied. I have only had one real credit card in my life and one store card years ago. I had a Military Star card as well when I was in the service, but I made the bad decision of stopping payments when I got out. Like I said, I made plenty of mistakes when I was younger...and I'm just trying to fix them now but I don't know where to start.
I have a few medical bills that I am working on getting rid of (trying to get the VA to pay for them since it's service connected), there are a couple of doc-in-the-box bills I need to take care of as well. All of these are in collections by the way....I owe about $5-6k.
Is there any hope for me? What do I need to do? All I want is to be able to apply for financing on a smart phone or have a credit card like everyone else. I know I was irresponsible in the past, but I'm older now and ready for the responsibility. Thanks for reading.
I don't have a ton of advice as I am still new to this as well but I will tell you that there is hope. I started my rebuild on 1/4/19, just a couple months ago, and have made HUGE strides all because of the advice that comes from this site. You can see my starting scores and my current scores in my signature at the bottom. I started with worse scores than you and my collections were over double what you currently have. My point is there is absolutely hope and we are all here help. Hang in there and congrats on starting your rebuild
@Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the encouragement. I have a question though... how did you get your scores to jump 150+ points in a little over a year? Was that all from new credit and paying off your collections?
I jumped it 150+ points in less than 3 months. Started my rebuild January 4th of THIS YEAR. My biggest thing was that I paid absolutely every collection, medical bill, whatever you can think of. I was lucky enough to have a ton of extra money at that point and decided to turn my credit around. It was right around $12,000. Luckily each one of the collections on my account were eligible for Pay For Delete which is as soon as you pay in full or settle with the collections they are removed from your report. The next biggest thing was sending Goodwill Letters to the credit card companies that were still reporting negative items on my report. A Goodwill Letter is just that, you send a letter to the company asking them kindly to remove negative items on your report. All of this guidance came from this site so use it for your benefit. If you list the negative items on your credit report here there are plenty of people that will guide you on how to approach them.
@CreditInspired wrote:Hi OP
So much is going on here, it’s difficult to discern what’s what.
So, let’s do this first. Order all 3
of your reports free from www.annualcreditreport.com and go over them with a fine-tooth comb to identify all negatives.
If there are things there older than 7 years, dispute them. If there is any incorrect info dispute it.
If there are accurate collections, call and see if you can do “pay for delete.”
If that doesn’t work, try flooding creditors with goodwill letters.
In order to go forward, you must clean up your credit report and this takes time, patience, and due diligence. Let me repeat that—time, patience, and due diligence.
There’s a wide gap in your scores. Do you know why? If it’s due to inquiries, stop applying for CCs until you get your report cleaned up.
Is there anyone who can make you an AU on their card to give you some history? They don’t need to give you a CC.
GL2U
I saw that gap too but OP states they signed up for Experian Boost and jumped their score by 70 points. I'm assuming thats the difference in the scores.