Has anyone used and had success with GROW CREDIT? Saw this thing pop up on Facebook and was curious because I could use an extra 20-30 points for my rebuild. I've heard of the Experian boost but I wasn't interested in it because it was just for Experian and not the others. How does it work exactly?
If you want to gain 20+ points. Getting a new account wont help. Resets AAoA's and so on. List out what you got now. We can work on that first. More credit doesnt mean higher scores unless you have 1 card.
Creditor/Credit Line/Balance
Any baddies.
I have had Grow Credit for about 6 months now and according to my account my EQ FICO score as gained 18 points. However, I don't think that was solely due to just have Grow. If you track your VantageScore that is were you will see the boost in score.
Grow does report to all 3 CRAs as a line of credit. Grow Credit is used to pay for online/ streaming subscriptions (ie. Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, etc). With the free account my limit to spend is $17 with a $200 reported limit. There are options to add more of a spending limit, but that involves paying a fee and that was a no go for me.
Yes it shows as Grow Credit across all 3 CRAs, but as @FireMedic1 posted in one my past threads, the name of the CL is not so important as the payment history.
If you take the plan for $150 spending limit, what is the limit they will actually report? The way the math works out now for $150 spending limit while actually planning to allocate $105 per month would be a 70% credit utilization percentage on the TL.
Also how much are the fees for $150 monthly account? Would you save money by placing AT&T on another card like you Cap One to avoid the monthly fee?
As far buying a new/newer car in today's market with the chip shortest would be the play I'll make for the sake of opening a new loan. I own all four of my cars outright and it nice not too have to pay a monthly car note and higher insurance cost. Personally if you have a good running and reliable car keep it was long a possibility and use the money saved to invest in your savings fund.
@kittycreditmeow wrote:
Oh yeah, I wasn't thinking about average age of accounts. Very good point. I just thought since they reported to all 3, no hard inquiry and I have AT&T and Canva, I could use to boost maybe 20 points. I'll update my siggy soon to reflect current accounts but right now I have:
Capital One - $500 (Exceptional History)
Target/TD Bank - $300 (Exceptional History)
Overstock/Comenity - $500 (1 Late - Trying to Get Waived Now)
Carters/Comenity - $450 (Exceptional History)
Genesis Credit/Wayfair - $2000 (Exceptional History)
First Premier - $700 (A few late payments)
Mission Lane - $600 (A few late payments)
Merrick Bank - $600 (A few late payments)
I had one self lender loan about 1.5 years ago that was paid off in full but no other loans and no collections at this time, however I do have several charge offs that I intend to pay just to keep them from being sold or updated. So all in all my credit scores have tanked significantly since all the charge offs are pretty recent but once they are paid off and updated or marked paid then I will start rebuilding. I can just continue to pay the cards I have and try to get lates removed if they are willing but my actual goal here isn't so much to obtain more credit and higher limits, it's just to secure an apartment without having to pay a huge deposit. I would like to move a year from now but right now with my credit, I would be flat out denied with no option of deposit. I'm in an okay apartment now that allows for some wiggle room with bad credit but it's definitely not my happy place. Also someone told me to get a car loan but with my credit the way it is now, I really don't know if I want to pay a huge down payment and double the price for a car just to have it on my credit. Also I aleady have a car that is fully paid and it's nice not having to make payments tbh.
Now we're getting somewhere. Yes paying all the CO's to $0 balance will help. They will no longer count against your aggregate util %'s. Theres some points. Speaking of util %'s. Copy and Paste those accounts above and add what the balances are. Like:
Creditor/Credit Line/Balance/Baddies with account.
There just might be more than 20 points just paying down your debts without hits to your score for new accounts being added. Which truthfully you dont need at this time. Fix whats broken first. Then once things are better. Then bigger and better things will happen. In the credit world. The bad always outweighs the good. But more good doesnt make the bad go away. One CO is like a maxed out revolver. Eliminate them. The Balances that is. Theres some more points.