Discover Secured

[Anonymous]

I'm coming up on 18 statements now with Discover, still secured. Is there any hope for this thing to unsecure at some point?

[Anonymous]

What has your average using been? Balance at statement date? Payments on time, partial or in full?

What is the rest of your credit like?

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
What has your average using been? Balance at statement date? Payments on time, partial or in full?

What is the rest of your credit like?

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+1. OP, we need to know what your credit is like to provide you with a well-informed answer.

[Anonymous]

Makes sense. 

My scores are all mid 600s. I hardly use the Discover secured card. $20 charge every now and again, paid off within the week. I do have 2 bad taglines, one with Discover and one with Capital One, both of which I have secured cards with right now. Both charged off early 2017. Two collections, one from 2012 and one from early 2016. 

Utilization is higher than I'd like (75%) due to paying for school, but I'm working that balance down pretty quick.

[Anonymous]

Have you paid the charge off balances in full? That may very well be the reason they've not graduated your card if so, especially considering one CO if with Discover.

Also, you'd be better to allow the small balance ride out until end of statement and PIF when due instead of paying off prior to statement cut.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Makes sense. 

My scores are all mid 600s. I hardly use the Discover secured card. $20 charge every now and again, paid off within the week. I do have 2 bad taglines, one with Discover and one with Capital One, both of which I have secured cards with right now. Both charged off early 2017. Two collections, one from 2012 and one from early 2016. 

Utilization is higher than I'd like (75%) due to paying for school, but I'm working that balance down pretty quick.

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OP, I think it may take Discover a while to unsecure your card because your profile -- which I am sure you are working hard to improve -- is not worthy for an unsecured Discover card. In addition, you have an outstanding charge-off with Discover, and I am sure Discover is holding you againist it. Finally, your utlilzation is much higher than the recommened 30% percentage cap. 

I would garden, work harder on the 2 charge-offs, and decrease your utilization to just under 30%, preferably 28.9%.

I hope this helps!  

[Anonymous]

I have paid off both charge off accounts. Paid them the day I found out about them. I wasn't aware of the paying for deletion thing back then so I wasn't able to do that. Just gotta live with them for now I guess. My utilization will be falling quite a bit over the next couple of months and hopefully that will slowly increase my scores. I am hoping to get the collection from 2012 removed sometime this year and maybe that will help a bit as well. The collections are both seperate from the charge off accounts with Discover and Capital One. The one from 2012 is from an electric company and the more recent one is from T-Mobile. Everything is paid.

My Discover secured card has a $200 limit so I don't even keep it in my wallet. I have secured ($501 CL) and unsecured ($1,500 CL) Capital One cards, Apple B Card ($2,000), Amazon store card ($1,300 CL), and a local credit union card ($2,500 CL). I suppose I'll put a small amount on the Discover and let the next statement cut. 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the additional details, OP.

If the collections are paid, you need to focus on decreasing your utilization. I would let DIscover report a small balance once in a while.

[Anonymous]

I received an email this morning stating that Discover will be unsecuring my card! It took 19 statements, but finally, they believe in me once again. 

Is it common for creditors to follow suit? Can I realistically expect that my Capital One card will unsecure soon as well?

[Anonymous]

Congrats!

I would not expect Cap1 to unsecure based solely on Discover graduating. It's really going to depend on each creditor and your history with their card.