And you're declined.
@Failingupwards wrote:
And you're declined.
Sorry to hear about that - it always sucks when you think you have a sure thing and then you turn out not to. Which service was it? Credit Karma, My Bank Rate, Nerd Wallet, or something similar? Most free credit-monitoring services use Vantage Score 3.0 which isn't used by most lenders so can't be relied on as a certain guide; you need to know your FICO (usually FICO 8 score). Also, the card recommendations on credit-monitoring sites are unreliable; you have to keep in mind that these sites earn a lot of their revenue from ads from credit-card issuers. The various issuers' prequal pages are more helpful but should also be taken with a grain of salt. A good rule of thumb is that you should only consider a pre-qualification/pre-approval offer to be really solid if it includes a single-figure APR quote or small-range (no more than 3%-4% difference between high and low) APR quote. If they give you a specific SL they will approve you for (rather than "maximum of..." or "up to..."), that makes your chances even better. Penfed is a case in point; every quarter when they update their members' FICO scores (assuming those members have active credit products with them), they will post offers, and sometimes those offers will be hard, guaranteed (or as near to guarantee as ever happens in the credit game) pre-approved with solid APR and starting credit line quotes.
