Oh my goodness. I am still in absolute shock over this.
I am headed to the garden at the end of this month for at least 12 months. It is April of next year when most all of my negatives should fall off on their own and I'm going to start EE on them as soon as possible. So, in that spirit I have been apping for everything, just to see what stuck.Not much did but I am not too worried about inquiries right now.
I applied for the Discover IT unsecured a few weeks ago, and was, of course, declined. I did not get a counter offer for the secured version. I started thinking yesterday that maybe I should just apply for both the Discover and Citi secured cards, just to see if there way any way I could get by foot back in the door with both companies.
See, I burned both in 2009 with charge offs. My Citi charge off resulted in a judgement, and wage garnishments to the tune of $14,500 that I just recently completed paying. I payed a CA rather than Citi, but I paid it. The Discover CO ($5k) never resulted in anything other than minor collection attempts. I have not heard anything in years and the account fell off my report in 2013, much earlier than the SOL. I know this does not mean I don't owe the money, and it is in my plan to pay it back as soon as I am able to do that.
I submitted both applications yesterday and, with Discover, I could not tell if I was approved or not. I got to the point of keying in the banking info for the deposit and then got a screen that told me they would make trial deposits that I would need to verify. I realized that I made a typo on my checking acct# so I called them to have it corrected. Honestly I expected to be immediately routed to the collection department and then laughed off the phone for even attempting an application.
The "account manager" that I got was SO NICE and super easy to work with. I had indeed made a type to the account and the only way for her to correct it was to go ahead an process my application right then. She kept putting me on hold to review this or that. I kept expecting her to come back and tell me I still owe them money and they would not consider approving me right now. But the CO was never even mentioned.
When she said, "Welcome to the Discover family!" I honestly nearly teared up. I said, "I'm approved?" and she said yes!
I know it's the secured card and my limit is just $200 right now but I will add to that. I wanted to be sure I was approved first. I also confirmed that they review for upgrade to unsecured at 12 months, sometimes sooner, which was the entire reason I applied. In 12 months my reports will be clean for the most part. I will treat this card like gold.
I thought I was years away from getting back in with Discover so I am stunned that they approved me. My scores are rough at 587-607 and my reports show 4 public records (all paid but 3 have not updated to that yet), 3 collections, and about 7 CO accounts that are 6-12 months from falling off.
My Citi application was not immediately declined. It is still under review. They wanted me to call them last night to verify my income and housing payment and they said they would call me today. In contrast with Discover, their rep barely spoke English and could not understand anything I was asking. But, I believe that account is also reviewed for upgrade to unsecured at 18 months.
So I hope this post will encourage some people. I know there is a lot out there about how Discover, Citi, and Chase blacklist, sometimes forever. That may be true, and if anyone is eligible to be on this blacklist with all 3 of these banks, it's me because I burned them all for a lot of money. But, I am back in with Discover and I'll update about Citi once I hear. Chase will be the toughest I'm sure but, for the first time in years, I actually have hope and can see the light at the end of this very long and grueling tunnel.
