Discover It Secured Card Graduated

[Harmony12]

This morning I woke up and checked my email like I do everyday. This time I had an email from Discover saying, Congratulations! My secured card graduated and I would be receiving my deposit in the mail within 5-7 business days. I started with a deposit of $500 and my new credit limit is now $2000. This is my largest current credit limit and I couldn't be anymore excited.

Here are few stats about me:

• I still have a few unpaid charge offs
  • NFCU cc about $4k that has not updated my most recent payments
  • Santander auto loan $4031 (no payments made since 5/2017)
  • Credit Management collection $333 (will fall off 2020)
• Current Scores
  • EQ 576
  • TU 627
  • EX 594 (score dropped 20+ points because of a disputed paid charge off in April)
• Use of Discover card
  • I used the card almost everyday making multiple payments every month
  • For example in April I made 3 payments as of today and will make another at month end
• Unsecured / Graduation Length
  • The Discover It Chrome card graduated a couple days after my 7th statement cut
• Fraud
  • Discover sent me a new card about 3 months ago because of fraduenlent activity.
• Utilization
  • 74% cc utilization reported by Discover
• Next steps
  • Requesting the 5% cash back
  • What do you think I should do next?

[Remedios]

Next should be dealing with COs and collection. 

[FireMedic1]

+1 from Reme. Congrats.

[Anonymous]

Congratulations!  How many days after your statement cut did you get your email?

[Harmony12]

It was about 5 days after my statement cut.

[Anonymous]

Mine finally graduated.... woke up this morning to a CLI increase, haven't received the official email yet tho.

[Harmony12]

Congrats! Please give your data points.

[pgtackle2003]

Congragulations on your graduation. I find it fascinating you made such a large jump. I too had a secured Discover card starting at $500. What I find odd is when they graduated me, I only got bumbed to $750 CL.  In fact my CR overal seems like it was a bit stronger. I had no unpaid Charge off's (I had 2 paid showing, had been paid about 12 months prior). CC debt of about 15 % at the time. It's crazy to me how Discover would increase your CL 4 times but only give me $250. In fact since then I have asked for a CLI and only got another $250 for a total of $1000 right now. When I got the increase to $1000 CL I had scores of about 680 across the board.

Congrats on the increase, just find Discover a bit crazy.

[Harmony12]

pgtackle2003,

Thank you.

When did you get your secured card and when did it graduate? Yes, I also find it odd that you only got $250 CLI. I have seen dozens and dozens of posts about Discover secured graduating and getting high CLI. I used my secured card like it was 0% interest card for 30 days and maxed it (or came very close) several times in a month and made multiple payments.

Did you have any other CC reporting at the time?

Do you have a thick or thin credit profile? Although, my profile is a bit spotty I have 12 years of history and some accounts are perfect.

Have you tried to prequalify for a new card?

Sorry for all of the questions but it would nice to get data points on why you got such a small CLI.

[pgtackle2003]

No problem with the questions. Happy to share data to help with comparisons (and for my own knowledge). For reference here, my Discover graduated in August of 2018, I got the secured card in November of 2017.

My profile is fairly thick as well. In fact about the same oveall length, about 12 years.

It is a bit spotty. I have Student Loan which had defaulted, that I then rehabbed. So the new SL trade line was in perfect standing. But the old SL trade line still exists on my CR, showing 120 day late payments. The last 120 late payment is from Feb of 2014.

The last late payment on my CR in general is a 30-day late on an Auto loan in Apr of 2017

I had one other revolver (CO Platinum) I got in Feb of 2018. $500 CR. At the time of graduation I think there was maybe $60 reporting.

I didn't ever max out my Discover. I think the highest balance it ever had was just over $300 which I paid off a week or so later.

I do pre-qualify for other Discover cards now. However, I am in the process of building a home (first home ever for me) and will close in about 60 days. So based on that can't open any new accounts right now.

I should note since Discover graduation, I was able to get two Amex's. One is the Delta Gold which had a SL of 5k and another Amex revolver that is 2k. Those are both only about 6 months old now. So it does seem I am on the upside of getting higher credit limits.