Rebuilding and paying off old debt - Deciding on AU?

[Anonymous]

Hello! So I am in the process of paying off old debt and moving towards the rebuilding phase. I recently paid off 4 collection items last week for a PFD and working towards getting the rest of the items resolved, hopefully with a PFD. What are your thoughts on being an AU during this phase? I was thinking of being an AU for Cap 1 or Discover since the credit limit is around $5k and $7k, but not sure how this would effect him because of my low score. I've heard of places that will flat out lower your limit. I've burned Cap1 a few years ago :/

I have 0 inquiries on my credit and would hate to try to apply for even a secured card, get declined for some reason, and be stuck with a ding.

Little history regarding AU topic: Hubby filed BK and received discharge in 01/2018, since then we've built up his credit to the 690's range and he has multiple CCs ranging from Cap1, Discover, Citi (HD Card). We have 2 auto loans in both of our names reporting since 5/2018 and 11/2018 - never late. I handle all of the CC payments, balances, utilizations, etc. but now it's time to work on my own credit and get back to the 700s I once had years ago. 

Creditor	Collection Agency	Opened or assigned
	LISTED UNDER COLLECTION
Norterra Hospital	Qualia Collection Service	7/1/2019	$        479.00
Emergency Svc of Tx	ARS Accounts Receivable	Assigned 4/1/2019 - but I believe created in 5/2017	$        482.00
Penn Foster	USCB	Assigned 1/2020 - but opened in 5/2017 approx.	$        615.00
Speedy Cash	National Credit Adjusters	Assigned 4/2020 - opened in 1/2018 approx.	$        926.00
Cox Cable	Convergent Outsourcing	Assigned 8/2020 - Last billed 12/2018	$        963.00
NCB Management Svc		5/1/2018	$    1,518.00
Lionloan	National Credit Adjusters	Assigned 12/2018 - opened in 1/2018	$    1,887.00
Education Program	Access Receivables	Assigned 7/2020 - opened in 12/2018	$    2,845.00
	LISTED AS DEROGATORY
Comenity - Express	No COL to my knowledge	First late 1/2018	$        520.00
First Premier	No COL to my knowledge	First late 1/2018	$    1,036.00
Comenity - VS	No COL to my knowledge	First late 1/2018	$    2,309.00
Kohl's Store  - Cap1	No COL to my knowledge	First late 1/2018	$    1,294.00
Total Owed in Collections and Derogatory			$  15,559.00

[OmarGB9]

Being an AU won't hurt the account holder's credit in any way outside of running up the balance and hurting utilization. The act of being added as an AU in itself won't hurt though.

As for your CAs, try to negotiate PFD on all of them. And take care of those derogatories that haven't gone to collections yet ASAP if you haven't already.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hello! So I am in the process of paying off old debt and moving towards the rebuilding phase. I recently paid off 4 collection items last week for a PFD and working towards getting the rest of the items resolved, hopefully with a PFD. What are your thoughts on being an AU during this phase? I was thinking of being an AU for Cap 1 or Discover since the credit limit is around $5k and $7k, but not sure how this would effect him because of my low score. I've heard of places that will flat out lower your limit. I've burned Cap1 a few years ago :/

I have 0 inquiries on my credit and would hate to try to apply for even a secured card, get declined for some reason, and be stuck with a ding.

Little history regarding AU topic: Hubby filed BK and received discharge in 01/2018, since then we've built up his credit to the 690's range and he has multiple CCs ranging from Cap1, Discover, Citi (HD Card). We have 2 auto loans in both of our names reporting since 5/2018 and 11/2018 - never late. I handle all of the CC payments, balances, utilizations, etc. but now it's time to work on my own credit and get back to the 700s I once had years ago. 

Creditor	Collection Agency	Opened or assigned
	LISTED UNDER COLLECTION
Norterra Hospital	Qualia Collection Service	7/1/2019	$        479.00
Emergency Svc of Tx	ARS Accounts Receivable	Assigned 4/1/2019 - but I believe created in 5/2017	$        482.00
Penn Foster	USCB	Assigned 1/2020 - but opened in 5/2017 approx.	$        615.00
Speedy Cash	National Credit Adjusters	Assigned 4/2020 - opened in 1/2018 approx.	$        926.00
Cox Cable	Convergent Outsourcing	Assigned 8/2020 - Last billed 12/2018	$        963.00
NCB Management Svc		5/1/2018	$    1,518.00
Lionloan	National Credit Adjusters	Assigned 12/2018 - opened in 1/2018	$    1,887.00
Education Program	Access Receivables	Assigned 7/2020 - opened in 12/2018	$    2,845.00
	LISTED AS DEROGATORY
Comenity - Express	No COL to my knowledge	First late 1/2018	$        520.00
First Premier	No COL to my knowledge	First late 1/2018	$    1,036.00
Comenity - VS	No COL to my knowledge	First late 1/2018	$    2,309.00
Kohl's Store  - Cap1	No COL to my knowledge	First late 1/2018	$    1,294.00
Total Owed in Collections and Derogatory			$  15,559.00

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I would try preapprovals instead of shooting off apps and getting HPs with no approvals.

Discover and Capital One have preapproval pages and are fairly on point.

I will say NCB does PFD. You need to speak with a manager, as the frontend CSRs do not have the authority to approve it and will say they do not do PFD.

Unfortunately, NCA (for speedy cash/lionloan), is a no-go for PFD. For the CA from Speedy Cahs, maybe the account will go back to Speedy Cash in house CA, AD Astra, that will both settle for less and PFD. Generally CAs for SC go to AD Astra first and if you ignore them, then they go to NCA.

I would work on settling the account that have not yet gone to collections. Then you can go on GW (goodwill) campaigns for each creditor and see if they would kindly remove the account from your CRs. First Premier is known to be receptive to GW requests. You can search the forum for others experiences with GWs from the creditors you have. At least settling the COs should help improve your scores even with if you don't get them removed.

I would pull all 3 CRs from annual credit report for free (no scores, but free to pull weekly thru 4/2021) and see when everything ages off to kind of triage where you should put your efforts ($) first. Perhaps some of these accounts are set to age off soon and you can circle back to them later.

Honestly, AU account will not affect the primary cardholder because of your credit, but it's help to you may be fairly limited because of all the baddies you still have to work thru. I would still say it is important to start building your own credit profile even if you do decide to become an AU on someone else's card, even if it is a secured card.

[simplegirl]

I burned capital one and paid them back then tried their pre-qualification and was qualified for a platinum card and got approved recently.

[mycreditscoreisfair]

I'll add that Convergent was willing to settle and PFD. They mailed me a letter and offered a 50% discount on my debt.

I'll also say that Capital One seems to be the most friendly in terms of approving bad/fair credit - at least in my experience. I've tried a few times to get preapproved for a Discover secured but always get rejected. But Capital One approved me for an unsecured card.

A couple other options are to either open an OpenSky secured card, which has a $35 annual fee I believe, with no credit check. And/or go the Self Lender route and open a secured card through them in three months with no credit check.

Personally, I don't think a couple credit inquiries will kill you, especially if you don't have any inquiries or open credit lines and get preapproved. Sometimes you have to step back to leap forward. I'd get the lines of credit, start establishing a good payment history and let the inquires stop fall off sooner than later.