@Anonymous wrote:So on my journey in reading from the forums I read that you could start your rebuild after 341 Meeting. I had my meeting at the beginning of October so on October 19th I applied trying to get the Discover It Secured CC. I was declined, gave me a reason of bankruptcy. My score was 583 at the time. My question is that now I have been discharged (in December) and Discover wasn't included in my bankruptcy will it forgive and let me in on the secure side or since I have already been denied is this a no go for me to ever get the Discover card.
I am following a rebuild from the site. Capital One was IIB so I went with Credit One. I applied to them on the same date as the Discover and they approved me after some verification. The limit to this card is $600 (have a balance of $164). I have a Loft Card $250 (have balance of $186.75) and Target Card $900 (balance of $208.42). When should I try again or should I leave Discover alone and go another route?
Did you go to the pre-qual site for Discover and check their prior to applying? That is normally pretty solid if you get offered something.
I don't mean to sound negative, but you should pay down your current balances before applying for anything. You have just gotten discharged and already have cards with some higher utilization and an aggregate of 30% which is a scoring hit level. You need this under 8.9%. That is likely how you got to the BK level in the first place. I would work on getting those balances down to only one reporting a small amount before getting any new credit. That will help your scores too, especially the Loft card as it's at 75% on its own. Might want to do a search for AZEO and start working to implement its methods as that will help your score grow and you will qualify for better cards and rates.
Well I'll try to re-word it a differtent way. When we see balances we think that was what was reported at statement date. Not what you have charged so far in the billing cycle. With new cards its best not to go over 30% of the CL. Some creditors would like to see that no one is charge happy and come close to their CL. If you are doing the AZEO method. Great. Try the Disco prequal when the 3 cards are at AZEO. Not when one is at almost max level and the other one is above 30% of the CL. You'll have a better chance. Let the acounts have at least 6-8 months of perfect payments. Closer to a year is even better. Thats when I got my first card. Good Luck!
@Anonymous wrote:So on my journey in reading from the forums I read that you could start your rebuild after 341 Meeting. I had my meeting at the beginning of October so on October 19th I applied trying to get the Discover It Secured CC. I was declined, gave me a reason of bankruptcy. My score was 583 at the time. My question is that now I have been discharged (in December) and Discover wasn't included in my bankruptcy will it forgive and let me in on the secure side or since I have already been denied is this a no go for me to ever get the Discover card.
I am following a rebuild from the site. Capital One was IIB so I went with Credit One. I applied to them on the same date as the Discover and they approved me after some verification. The limit to this card is $600 (have a balance of $164). I have a Loft Card $250 (have balance of $186.75) and Target Card $900 (balance of $208.42). When should I try again or should I leave Discover alone and go another route?
There are several issues here that I am seeing. First, you may want to make sure the bankruptcy is being reported correctly on all three bureaus as well as Innovis and LexisNexis. You may want to freeze LexisNexis because the other bureaus will basically just copy down whatever they have, whether it's correct or not. They will also use it to "verify" information if you do dispute with the others while Lexis is not frozen. If there are any inaccuracies, I would then dispute them after freezing Lexis.
Second, let's say your bankruptcy is reporting correctly. Creditors aren't going to be lining up to extend you credit if the bankruptcy is recent. CreditOne has high fees and is ran by a collection agency, which is why they will take pretty much anyone. They ASSUME a large amount of customers will default and you are paying them extra for approving you. Discover has a more long-term strategy for it's secured cards. They aren't charging high amount of fees and they offer rewards. In addition, they have been unsecuring many cards within the first year and granting credit line increases. They may be less likely to approve you because the cost of you defaulting is not built right into their business model, or at least not to the same extent as CreditOne. Discover wants to please customers by giving them a shot, unsecuring the card quickly, and by keeping them for long term-profits, whereas CreditOne wants as much money as possible upfront.
Third, let me point out that as a point of personal financial health, you may not want a ton of credit cards after a recent bankruptcy. You may have to change your entire attitude towards money. Let's say you stick with the CreditOne and the store cards for now. You'll still be building credit and there is much less risk for running up a huge debt. I think you might want to consider what your real goals are for buiulding up your credit. If it's just to get a good score, you can do that with the cards you have. If you want a safety net, then maybe consider a credit union card in the future because they will be more understanding of your BK and will have low rate and low fee options. You can always plan to get into the rewards game, but I caution you that it could bakcfire by causing you to spend more money you don't have without even thinkng about it.
Lastly, my advice would be to follow the plan other have mentioned by keeping your utilization low and maximizing what FICO points you currently have. You should probably let your current cards age for 6 months to a year and then pursue some better options. Around that time, you may qualify for an unsecured Capital One card (they will take you back after a default, BTW), the Discover secured card, or maybe even a Bank of America or Citi secured card. Discover and Cap1's processes are highly automated for approvals, so checking the prequalification page will give you a good idea if you will get approved. Recon is difficult if not impossible with these two. But let's say you get denied for BofA a year from now, you could call up and talk to a credit analyst and possibly get an override. I'm unsure about Citi, so I'd search around on here for recent approvals for that card.
I apologize, I did not mean to come off as judgemental. As FireMedic said I saw the amounts and credit limits and thought you were running those as a balance and that is what is reporting on your CRA's. You will come closer to getting better rates, SL's and approval from other cards when it looks like you are not using very much of your available credit lines.
@dynamicvb wrote:I apologize, I did not mean to come off as judgemental. As FireMedic said I saw the amounts and credit limits and thought you were running those as a balance and that is what is reporting on your CRA's. You will come closer to getting better rates, SL's and approval from other cards when it looks like you are not using very much of your available credit lines.
The method I used is what I did from day 1 on my rebuild after BK and passed onto you. I had no cards IIB. Only 1 time I went over 60% of my available balance and that was to get the 40k mile bonus on my Venture. But paid it off right after before it posted. 3.6 years later I have never gone past 20% of available balance due to using many cards a month so I can get something back on any purchase and have stayed at AZEO ever since. I believe that helped me go 9-0 on approvals since DC. I dont look like a high risk. Its on your CR on how much is used each month as "high balance". But as we say YMMV. I just try to pass on what worked for me. I got cards mostly for saving $ and at my age for emergencies if they arise. Thats about it. It may help others and may not help others. Good Luck getting your Disco!