Hello readers and thanks very much for being here to lend a hand with valuable advice. I have read some forums, but still find it very hard to make sense of so much data, and am confused.
I have summarized the situation in the table below. The scores are expected to rise a bit in a few days, as I have just paid down all credit cards using my California state tax refund and some accounts reflect a zero balance while others do not.
After my 21 year old car died in 2017, I started using Lyft as I was not able to afford a card due to support obligations to ex husband. Lyft is very expensive and I badly need a car. Currently I am not making support payments to ex husband and would like to buy a car. It would be my first car loan - my prior car was bought very used, for cash.
I would like to help my son establish a US credit history and for that reason would prefer him to co-sign the car loan with me. However, he does not have any individual accounts - he is only an authorized cardholder on mine. As a result, his scores are very good, but he has no income history in the US (just finished college in Canada and about to start a minimum wage summer internship in the US) and I wonder whether applying with him as a co-signor would hurt my chances of getting reasonably good rates. Or maybe not - maybe his good scores would give me a boost. How can I find out?
I currently have American Express Delta Skymiles with a 1K credit limit. I try using it the most because of the miles. I also have Capital One card which I use where American Express is not accepted. It does not offer rewards. Cap 1 bombards my son and me with offers of their other cards that have rewards. They also offer autofinancing prequalification.
Besides being confused as to whether I should put my son as a co-signor on the application, I do not know whether now is a good time to apply for a new non-AmEx credit card or whether I should wait until financing a car. Further, should I ask American Express to increase the limit? There are quite a few expenses I have to put on Capital One where AmEx is not accepted, and as a result I am spending money without any cash back whatsoever.
Thank you for reading all the prose 
and reviewing the table. I will update the scores as they (hopefully) go up a bit in the coming days. The scores in the tabe are Vantage model 3.0. I am reading on this forum that I should disregard them. I am not sure what I should put instead, so for now these are here as some reference point. I have signed up for Equifax 3 report monitoring, Memorial Day promotion, and intend to cancel it on June 5.
Thanks,
Trying to Get Unstuck.
Mother, permanent resident, lives in California, good history in recent years but seriously bad history earlier due to being taken advantage of in divorce | Son (potential co-signor), US citizen, just finished college in Canada, starting an internship in California, short and flawless credit history, but only as an authorized cardholder of Mother's cards | |
bankruptcies | none | none |
Equifax Score VantageScore 3.0 scoring mode | 739 | 739 |
Equifax Inquiries | 0 | 0 |
Equifax Collections | 0 | 0 |
Equifax AAoA | 14 Years, 5 Months | 2 Years, 1 Month |
TransUnion Score VantageScore 3.0 scoring mode | 632 | 737 |
TransUnion Inquiries | 1 Synchrony Bank Care Credit 12/02/2019 | 2 (neither resulted in his own line, alas, even though Cap 1 bombards him with pre=approved offers):
|
TransUnion Collections | 5 (FCO 2016, Discover, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Chase - all large collections from 2015) | 0 |
TransUnion AAoA | 8 Years, 10 Months | 2 Years, 1 Month |
Experian Score VantageScore 3.0 scoring model ?? | 629 | 735 |
Experian Inquiries | 1 (Nordstrom: removal date Aug 2021) | 0 |
Experian Collections | 2 for $2,164 total:
| 0 |
Experian AAoA | 8 Years, 10 Months | 2 Years, 1 Month |
# of positive trade lines: | 6 (AmEx, Cap 1, Synchrony, Nordstrom, 2 Comenity accts) | 4 (all 4 as an authorized user on Mother's first 4 cards; no trade line of his own) |
# of negative trade lines: | 4 (B of A, Discover, Chase, Wells Fargo, for a total of almost 60K, all first late in 2015) + see collections | 0 |
Income: | 200K/year | about to begin a minimum wage internship in the US; no history of US income |
Length of Employment: | 2+ years at current job | 0 |
Previous Loan Experience: | child support to daughters from a subsequent marriage; closed in good standing in Sept 2020, in the past paid $4470/mo over many years | None |
Debt-to-Income (DTI): | 2% | n/a (no debt, no income yet) |
Year of Car | 2016-2018 | |
Miles: | Under 30K | |
Purchase/Refinance | Purchase | |
Requested loan term | 60 months, but are flexible, can take fewer | |
Down payment amount | 4K but less would be better | |
Value of the car | 19K - 23K | |
In January I co-signed for an auto loan for my daughter and her husband.
I talked to the finance guy at the car dealer before agreeing to a hard pull or any action on their part at all. My condition on co-signing was none of the car dealer multiple HPs could happen.
Because I'm a WF Bank customer I said "go with them" when the finance guy told me they were one of the potential lenders. My reasoning was I would be able to have oversight on the loan in the WF mobile app I monitor for my accounts anyway.
So the dealer did one HP to verify my credit and WF did one HP when the loan was presented to them.
(My SIL has poor credit but a good income. My DD has no credit and is a SSHM with only household income so logic said I would co-sign for SIL rather than DD. He did not qualify without a co-signer.)
The interest rate was higher than the last used car loan I had through WF, btw, because of my SIL's poor credit. But we got the deal done, the payments are reasonable, he's building back credit AND he paid 25% of the loan in advance last month so my utilization isn't as high which makes the credit hit a bit less for me.
@GettingUnStuck wrote:Thank you for your response aj2121. I do not NEED a credit card. I WANT to move away from a no-rewards to rewards non-AmEx car, but I do not NEED it. I NEED a car. But I get your point about applying virtually simultaneously, first for the card and then immediately for the loan, to end up with only one hard pull. Question: what if my CC application is rejected? Still one hard pull?
I see from your response that I should buy FICO scores. Given that I have just paid down all my CC balances, should I wait before purchasing the product or will the product provide continuous updates? Also, do you recommend I call each CC company to find out on what date they are reporting? Or, can I figure it out myself from the date when they cut their statements?
Thanks,
Getting UnStuck.
If you apply for a credit card, you take the same number of hard pulls regardless of whether you are approved or denied. Depending on the issuer, they may pull a single bureau, two, or all three.
If you are considering buying FICO scores and want to see what your scores would be after certain profile changes (such as lower cc balances) post, then you would need to buy the scores after those changes post. Whether the scores update daily or monthly will depend on the product you're buying. However, you do have some options for free or inexpensive FICO scores, if you just want to see where you stand:
1) Your Amex card already provides you with a free monthly EX FICO8. I'm not sure where it is on the app, since I don't use it, but on the desktop it's in Account Services>Profile>View FICO Score. Be aware that Amex provides both EX8 and TU VS3 on their site, depending on where you look, so you want to make sure you're looking at the FICO score.
2) A free monthly EX8 is also available at creditscorecard.com from Discover.
3) For a $1 trial, you can see all three FICO8's, your EX2 mortgage score, and a few other EX FICO scores, at www.creditchecktotal.com, which is an Experian site. Just make sure to downgrade to the free membership before the end of the trial so you don't get hit with the full monthly fee.
You should be able to call your issuers to see when they report, but you can also look on your credit reports from ACR and other report sources to see when the date of the last update was. For most issuers, this will be the statement date (as it is for both Amex and Cap1).
