Started my rebuild journey in 2017 with scores hoovering around the 590-600 range.
Had 1 C/O, and my only credit card at the time had 8 Late payments with the worst being 120+ Days Late.
I felt defeated, thought i would never be able to buy a house, never be able to get a new car. You know the useual sky is falling doom and gloom stuff.
Then instead of just living with my mistakes I decieded to accept and fix the damage I had caused.
Stumbled onto these forums knowing absolutly nothing about rebuilding, but was eager to learn the get the ball rolling.
Going over these forums I found a ton of information and proceeded to write goodwill letters and try and contact the debt collector my one C/O accout was sold to in order to try and set up a PFD. This is still a work in progress and I may just wait for it to fall off as the account is now approaching 5 years.
I waited 4 months with constant goodwill letters to my one oppen account and finally saw some positive acction. Half of the late payments that were reporting were changed to "no information". I figured with that I could apply for an unsecured card.
Went to Cap1 and boom instant approved for $250 platinum card. (Not the greatest but at that time my only other card was a Gamestop comenity card with a $500 limit)
After that approval I waited another 4 months still working on getting the C/O and more late payments removed. I do not know what I was thinking when I applied for the Cap1 QS1 then but I was instant approved but for $500 this time. I thought great getting higher limits and my platinum would hit its steps in the next couple months to bring it to $500.
Time goes by there are some big medical expenses and loss of a job, but I was still on track and maintaining perfect payment record since starting the rebuild.
My utilization reported 80% but I knew as long as I did at the very leat the minimum payment I could still recover from the hardship.
My fortune turns around and I wind up with a good job and started to pay down my cards more aggresively in the second half of 2018.
At this point I'm thinking just stay in the garden till the begining of 2020 and then try for a better card.
Well I was feeling very good after checking my scores this month (all scores hoovering between 630-645) so I went ahead and pulled the trigger on two cards.
The first being the Discover IT Cash card. I had been looking at preapprovals for Discover back when I started my rebuild and never had anything show. To my supprise there was actually an offer this time for either the Cash or Chrome cards with SOLID aprs.
I instantly applied for the Cash card and almost cried when I saw that I was instant approved for $1250. Thought it would be years down the line before I started seeing usable SLs on cards.
In my excitement I went ahead and applied for the citi DC card. No instant approval, but no denial. The application went to the dreaded 7-10 days. Still feeling confident I called Citi. All the csr asked me was for my personal information (name, address, phone number) then after asked if he could call me back in 3 minutes. Got the call back he puts me on a 2 minute hold then boom approved for the DC with a $1000 limit.
After getting off the phone with the csr I started to think about a pc on my Cap1 Plat.
Went to the link and sure enough was able to change the Plat to a QS, (No limit increase but apr reduction).
Looked into that for the QS1, but that is a no go from the site. (Will call this week to confirm it cannot be PC'd yet)
If the QS1 cannot be PC'd will look into combining that into the newly changed Plat to keep my options open down the line for a prime card from Cap1.
With a successful product change and two approvals on the same day and both with 1k+ limit and the abilty to grow quickly with regular use I feel it is time to go back into the garden for a while .
Hope this helps somebody in a similar situation keep faith in their own rebuilding.
