what was the most stupid mistake you made while working on your credit scores?

[WannaHouse]

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@Anonymous wrote:
I app'd for too many cards and brought my average age down, way down...

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Yup...me too!     

[Anonymous]

I had credit cards that had a 0 balance and a lengthy credit history but closed those accounts. Wish I had known better.

[Anonymous]

wow my little thread is still going   : )

I hope it helps someone not make the same mistakes most of us have..

I can't believe I just made another mistake..husband added me on his new charge card ..we moved all his debt to it as its zero interest till 2010..paid his others off.

but now it looks like i have new $6000 debt maxed out almost and a new card so my average age went down grr..I can't believe it..!! Not sure if its worth cancelling or if the damage is done..anyone know?

[Junejer]

If you are AU, then you can get out of it and everything will recover. If you are joint, well...you know.

[Junejer]

Biggest mistakes were to dispute off old closed accounts before finding this site--what a moronic move. Also, before finding this site, I closed out over $30,000 in revolving debt, just because I wasn't using the cards at the time. Just send me form # 1D10T, I will fill it out gladly.

[demi]

I wrote in earlier about a consumer finance account WRONG...stupidist was paying a charge off with Spiegel, 30 a month for 3 years...now its showing 90+ every month for 25 months.  Tried and tried (only shows this way on Experian) with Experian and Spiegel to get this cleaned up, nothing.  Just got denied an American Express because of it.

Message Edited by demi on 11-06-2008 04:10 PM

[Anonymous]

In my youth during the boom years of the 1980s, I acquired over 22 credit cards just because I could. What can I say? It just felt cool. This was when gold cards actually meant something. But I didn't have a plan. I didn't know anything about FICO scoring. And resources like this forum were just a dream as the internet was in its infancy at 2400 bps dial-up speeds.

I did get into trouble with a couple of tradelines. But like an idiot, instead of hunkering down and paying them off one by one, I paid them off in full and cancelled all of my credit cards in a fit of sheer stupidity. I resolved to kick the credit card habit for good. Instead, I only kicked myself right in the keister. 

At the time, I actually thought I was doing the right thing. I thought it was noble to live totally debt free. hey, I was Dave Ramsey when Mr. Ramsey didn't have a clue, much less a talk show.  And I proceeded to pay cash for everything for the next 20 some odd years. Big mistake. Just try an get favorable terms on a mortgage without any credit history!

Now I'm rebuilding my credit like a newbie college kid again. But thanks to this forum, I'm doing it right. I've got a plan. I've got a lot more experience and spending discipline. And I do continue to live mostly debt free. But I now have sterling credit that I maintain by paying all my bills in full on a monthly basis and rotating my cards regularly. My purchases are all items I would have paid for in cash anyway. I just don't like to carry large sums of cash around with me anymore.

And I get much better warranty protection on the big ticket items I do buy when I use certain credit cards, like Amex.  It's win-win all around.

To me, credit is very useful tool and makes my life so much easier now that I know how to handle it. 

 But credit is a fearsome master when your spending gets out of control. And I have nothing but sympathy for anyone who has let their credit cards turn into the monsters that mine became. But thankfully, we live and, hopefully, we learn. And we can always wise up and change for the better.

Regards,

Cato