Rebuilt credit enough to buy a house, now it has dipped again. What now?

[Anonymous]

Over the last few years I divorced someone who was completely irresponsible with our family money causing my credit score to go down in the 400s (OUCH). I was able to rebuild by using and paying down "bad credit" credit cards like First Premier and Indigo, as well as a couple small ones by Capital One. I bought a house and was ecstatic that I was able to raise my scores so much in 2 years, but now my scores have taken a huge dip again (high 500s). I bought the house almost a year ago, so I didn't think getting a mortgage would affect my score negatively for this long.

My 2 highest limits cards were from First Premier (ugh) and they suddenly closed them overnight. I have never been reported negatively on them and always pay (usually double the minimum payment) every 2 weeks. I had one payment go out on a wrong date which was rejected, and the company claims that's the reason. But that was 2 months ago and I fixed it immediately and had no past due balance to begin with. I'd much rather get a card from my credit union or bank, but now I'm afraid these closures will cause a further dip in my score making it impossible for me to do.

I'm new at asking advice on this stuff and I feel completely unprepared to handle it. It's overwhelming.

[mrcraft]

It sounds like with your two First Premier cards being closed, your utilization may have increased a lot which can lower scores.  Ideally, you want to be below 30% utilization.

Joining a credit union is a good idea.  If you can't get an unsecured card with them, many credit unions offer secured cards.  You can build a relationship with the credit union while working on your credit scores.  Some do HP for membership, others SP.  Once you find one that you are interested in, you can search the threads here for more information.

[Jannelo]

You said you bought a house a year ago and didn't think that your scores would be affected so negatively this long.  

Are you carrying signifcant balances on all of your credit cards?  I'm just wondering what your utilization is with your remaining cards and what it was with your two recently closed cards.  You mentioned paying double on what was owed, not paying in full.

What is/was your credit limits for every card and the balances you were carrying on the FP cards and the present balances on your remaining cards?  If you list those, somebody from here can take a look at what you need to do to get your scores back up and be able to apply to replace them, and with a better lender than First Premier.

Good Luck!