Do services like Kikoff and Ava actually work (long term)?

[Bunny01]

So I signed for Kikoff in November. I ruined my credit by taking out two loans for dental work and then not paying those loans back. Both accounts were sent to collections + I settled for both. I signed up for the $2500 credit line option and the $200 loan that Kikoff offers; in one month, my vantage and FICO scores for TransUnion and Experian went up by 50 and 35 points, respectively. My Equifax vantage score also went up, but it was a smaller improvement, like 10 points. I'm now at the high 650s for Experience, 630s for TransUnion, and still 621 with Equifax.

I just signed up for Ava last night, and I want to up my subscription to Kikoff from the $2500 to $3500 credit line. 

How long should I expect these services to positively impact me? What are the experiences of others who have used them? I've seen generally positive but many mixed reviews regarding Kikoff. I have a Capital One Secured Card I'll start using soon, but I want to know how I should proceed regarding these subscription services. 

[GZG]

---

@Bunny01 wrote:

So I signed for Kikoff in November. I ruined my credit by taking out two loans for dental work and then not paying those loans back. Both accounts were sent to collections + I settled for both. I signed up for the $2500 credit line option and the $200 loan that Kikoff offers; in one month, my vantage and FICO scores for TransUnion and Experian went up by 50 and 35 points, respectively. My Equifax vantage score also went up, but it was a smaller improvement, like 10 points. I'm now at the high 650s for Experience, 630s for TransUnion, and still 621 with Equifax.

I just signed up for Ava last night, and I want to up my subscription to Kikoff from the $2500 to $3500 credit line. 

How long should I expect these services to positively impact me? What are the experiences of others who have used them? I've seen generally positive but many mixed reviews regarding Kikoff. I have a Capital One Secured Card I'll start using soon, but I want to know how I should proceed regarding these subscription services. 

---

so they work, as you've seen. 

they report positive history and your score has gone up. 

but lenders will get better at this over time, but they know that these aren't "real" tradelines, and your goal will be to take this credit score increase and use it to open some "real" cards/loans to show lenders that despite the mess up in the past, you're good now and you can handle and take on real bank tradelines.

does your credit report show that those balances are now $0 and settled in full? 

adding some other secured cards like discover secured or us bank secured or navy fed secured will help as well build up to ~3 revolving real credit cards.

[Bunny01]

Thank you so much for the response. I very naively didn't consider that the credit bureaus are aware these lines of credit aren't real. Based on what I've read about stagnating credit scores, I'm assuming this is why eventually these services won't be useful anymore. Thanks for mentioning this. 

Secondly, one of my settlements still shows that there's a balance. I paid it a little over a month ago, but the agent told me it should fall off in 45 days and if it hasn't, I have to call back immediately. 

Right now, I have a Chase credit card and a Capital One secured card. Discover closed my account with them because I stopped using the card (I also had a 2 late payments on that card total). Should I still try to get a secured card with them? My work actually requires me to use US Bank, but it's a checking account with a debit card. Would it be better to try them? 

[Troopscott]

Us bank has a great secured rewards card. Altitude. 

[FicoMike0]

Since you're already with usb, that would be a good start. They have three different secured cards to choose from. They also allow a fairly high deposit, if credit limit is an issue. They don't seem to have a preapproval. 

Your scores are a little low for amex, but they offer "apply with confidence", no hp if not approved. Costs nothing, try bce.

If you don't have an open Installment loan, you might go for a ssl. It gets you 30-40 points, in 30-60 days. You'd need $1500 upfront, which you get right back. It ends up costing <$10 a year. If interested look it up, or post and I'll explain.

[FicoMike0]

Ps

I don't know about kickoff, if it's an installment loan, a ssl wouldn't help. The ssl keeps working for years at little cost, might be a better deal. Nfcu and penfed do ssls, you might want other accounts with them as well, they're the #1 & 2 credit unions in the us.

[Bunny01]

sorry for the late reply, hope you're still around. 

can you please explain the SSL? I do have an open installment loan with Kikoff, but I'm interested in what the SSL could do for me after I finish with the installment (it's only $200).

[GZG]

---

@Bunny01 wrote:

sorry for the late reply, hope you're still around. 

can you please explain the SSL? I do have an open installment loan with Kikoff, but I'm interested in what the SSL could do for me after I finish with the installment (it's only $200).

---

a SSL allows you to gain all of the FICO score benefits of an installment loan for the entire length of term of the loan instead of the last couple of months of the loan

for FICO scoring you get a bonus in your score if you have one installment loan that has been paid down over 91% of the way

when you have an installment loan that hasn't been paid down 91% yet, you don't get that bonus

so with the right SSL, you can have a loan that is always paid down over 91% of the way for the entire length of the loan term 

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Successful-PenFed-SSL-Loan/td-p/6773999 

assuming you can't get into NFCU:

you take some amount of money preferably $2-$3k, the more the better up to $3150 because the longer term you have, the less often you'll have to change it out for a new one and you put it into a PenFed savings account for 30 days

then you call up and ask for a shared secured loan for the amount in your savings account 

they take the money in the savings account

then they pay you back the amount of money that they took from your savings account

then you make a large payment on the loan using that money they give you to make sure the loan is over 91% paid off 

and then Penfed gives you back the amount of you paid back into your savings account and now most of your money is returned back to you and no longer locked up in the loan

Penfed now pushes back the due date of your loan so you don't need to make another payment for 3+ years and for the entire length of that time, if that is the only open loan you have, you'll typically recieve a fairly decent sized FICO score increase