So back in 2010, my ex and I lost our house to foreclosure. Oh, and my ex also thought that paying income taxes on his business was "optional" so we owe back taxes going back to 2006 (ok... maybe 2006 has been clear and we may be up to 2008) and we have a very sizeable tax lien. Add to the mix that it took me a LONG time to realize that credit card due dates were more than just a suggestion and, well, yeah... my Fico scores pretty much sucked!
For the last several years, I scraped by with 3 Cap 1 cards and 1 CU Mastercard -- all 500 limits. For the last 2 years, I focuesed on paying those on time and my credit scores would over between 550 and 580... but nothing really seemed to move the needle significantly.
My "hit bottom" moment was in December when I applied for a lease. Between some messed up reporting by GM Financial and a medical collection that hit (in error -- since has been removed), my credit score took a PLUNGE like Black Friday on the stock market... I went from nearly 590 to 523 literally overnight.
I started fighting back -- got the medical collections disputed and taken off. Got GMFinancial sorted out -- mostly. Scores went back up to the 570 range. Discovered these boards and ditched Equifax monitoring and signed up for MyFico 3-score monitoring in the beginning of January. On January 7th, my 3 scores for 577, 579 and 581.
THEN I learned about the shopping cart trick... I was able to get 4 cards in one day via the SCT. Also took hard pulls and got yet another Cap 1, Jared, WalMart, and Kohls. All with "toy" limits ranging from 250 - 500. I also appealed to Cap1's EO and got the credit limit doubled on 2 of my mastercards. Hit the Love button for Menards and they doubled my credit limit from 500 to 1000. I was riding a wave.
So over the last 6 - 8 weeks, my phone has been getting lit up like a Christmas tree with all the changes to my various crediit reports. Hard Inqs? Way up! Balances? Up! Util? DOWN (just due to the amount of new available credit), AAoA? down from 6.8 years to just under 2 years....
But the real metric: FICO Scores: For the first time in literally YEARS, all are well above 600. They are now 618, 626, and 630.
This is a HUGE deal for me because as I posted on other threads, I'm trying to put myself in a position to qualify for a mortgage and was told I need 620s across the board. But then it dawned on me. I got an email from my mortgage broker friend and she said the key is to "flood the credit bureaus" with good information to offset the baddies from before. And it hit me today. With 4 credit cards and a car, that is a potential for at most 5 ontime payments coming in per month. However, with store cards -- even with toy limits, I'm going from 5 "pays as agreed" per month to 11 "pays as agreed"... If 30 percent of your Fico score is based on on time payment history and your "on-time payment" history is calculated as a percent of ontime payments / all payments, then the math says that all of a sudden 1 missed payment from 2014 carries a whole lot less weight because you have a huge increase in the number of data points. if you have 5 trade lines, 1 missed payment in 2 years is 1/60. In essence, you only have a 99 percent on time payment history. However, if you have 11 tradelines, then 1 missed payment in 2 years is 1/121.
I realize -- this is probably blasphemy on these boards where the SCT is considered an instrument of the devil. But, as my mortgage broker said, you have to flood the credit bureaus with good information and the best way to do that is VOLUME!
My scores are nearly 100 points higher than 3 months ago and 40-50 points higher than just the end of January... while I have done a lot of stuff that would be considered bad (i.e. upped my inquries, dropped my AAoA, increased my balances owed), the Big 3 think I'm doing something right because the net effect is higher credit scores than I have had pre-foreclosure!
I'm not recommending that everyone follow this approach and I know some here might get on me for risky irresponsible behavior. But I had to do SOMETHING... I have 13 months to qualify for a mortgage. Plugging away and paying my Cap1 cards and car on time wasn't moving the needle. The only thing that finally moved the needle was more credit... and for me, the only way I was able to get more credit was through the shopping cart trick. Would I love it if I could have those tradelines be "the big boys" like Chase, AmEx, Discover.... Abso-freaking-lutely... but right now, I'll take what I can get.
And for what it is worth -- there ARE advantages to toy spending limits... I just got letters for myself and my 3 boys that all of our SSN and information had been stolen in the BCBS security breach. If someone hacks into one of my credit card accounts -- it is kind of nice to know that realistcally, there isn't a whole lot of damage they can do because the credit limits are low. I know some people that will only shop online with a 500-dollar CL card just to be able to minimize the risk if their credit card number is stolen.
So anyway, sorry for the long drawn-out boring story.... As people are fond of saying on this board YMMV. This is what worked for me but I wouldn't recommend it for everyone.
Cheers...
Starting Scores (01/15)
EQ=577; TU=579; EX=581
Current Scores (03/15)
EQ=618; TU=628; EX=630
The brylane stores seem to be the easiest -- that was where I had my first success: woman within, brylane home, jessica london, onestopplus -- these all cater to plus-sized women for the most part. Overstock worked for me -- that was the 2nd one I got. But no dice on Lane Bryant or Catherines, QVC, HSN... I think it really depends on the store and the "lesser known stores" seem to be more liberal in terms of SCT offers.
- Also, make sure your popup blockers are disabled.
- Clear your history and cookies before each attempt at each store.
- If you haven't lived at your current address for very long (at least a year or more, try a previous address. For JJill, I put in the address for the house that we lost due to foreclosure -- haven't lived there since 2010 but it worked for me -- I was able to change the address to my current one after I accepted the offer.