TheGonagle

I've noticed that Amex is about the slowest of any of my creditors at updating to the CRAs. When I first got my amex, I charged a few things the first month, then paid almost in full, in other words, PIF minus about $5. Then I stopped using the card completely and waited for it to report. And waited... And... You get the idea. When it finally did report, all three CRAs showed a $5 balance, and the correct credit limit. You might want to try something like that.

YUP!! Don't "buy" them though. Get the free ones that you're entitled to by law each year. (Those don't include your FICO scores though; you have to pay for those, unless you "know someone.")

I've also tried, but have been unable to add entries. (For Amex, Discover, Chase Freedom, and US Bank Platinum.) I wanted to help others, since the database has helped me, but I guess it didn't want to hear from me. At this point, I don't know what my ficos were at the time, except for the US Bank Platinum, and a CLI for Discover. I'll add those two post-haste, if I can. (EDIT: It worked! I did it! Yay!)

was that really necessary? Sorry. I didn't mean to sound racist or be offensive. It just made me think that they might be out-sourcing their customer service people from overseas. Now I could very well be wrong; I didn't ask Ann where in the world she was speaking to me from, and it was my mistake to make an assumption. However, such out-sourcing seems very common these days, and the trend really peeves me. Personally, I just prefer to do business with American companies who have enough respect for America to employ people in America. It's short-sighted, quarter-by-quarter, bottom-dollar actions like this by major corporations that is slowly but surely destroying our great nation.

I discovered the change yesterday, called the 800 number from the website today, and canceled. The rep, "Ann," who had a curiously Indian-sounding accent, explained that I could still get the change report, and she blah blah blah'd a few other things, but I said "I've been rethinking whether I need the service at all for the past few months, but the new policy made my decision easy, so all the same, I'd like to cancel today, please." Then I logged in here, found this thread, and found the real phone number. Oh well. (My billing was 26th each month; I'm not going to pursue the refund at this point.)

I got an Amex Blue about two months ago and was awarded a $5000 limit. As per the advice here, I broke it in at a coffee shop, not *bucks, but a different chain that's pretty big here (Caribou Coffee), then charged $60 or so at Ikea, and then bought a $500 bike at a local bike shop. After the first statement hit and it reported to all the bureaus, I paid in full. I must have done something right, because a week or two ago, I hit the "love" button on their website (I like that term a lot), asked for an increase to $8000, and got it. (And thought, "that was too easy, I should have asked for more!")

There were five separate Wells Fargo student loan accounts each showing 3 X 30 days and 2 X 60 days late. The late payments would have occurred about in mid 2003 and again in early 2004. (The accounts were paid through a consolidation loan in 2005.) I swear to God, my Exp increased from 675 to 728 when the bad accounts were updated. Something else might have happened, too, because on yesterday's pull, my TU went from 694 to 700, and my Eq went from 690 to 710. I just haven't figured out what else changed yet.

Crazy stuff. So... I haven't read 1300+ replies, but I did have an idea in my head that I would use bu M P A G E to improve my scores. Although I've only been at it for a couple of weeks, I guess that doesn't work anymore. I never did achieve the magical b*. The happy thing, however, is that I can cancel the TC monthly fee. Woot! The CK FAKO that CK gave me minutes ago was over 850, but the actual FICO on TU is only 700 at last check at 2 PM yesterday. Maybe that means that they removed/updated a disputed baddie on 5-year old student loan accounts that I actually got a retroactive deferral on, just like experian did last week. (Eq showed them as never late for forever, and Ex just changed them to "never" a few days ago, resulting in a 50+ score increase. These lates were 5+ years old, too!) Anyhooooo... I want to b m p, but I guess it's not working anymore. Oh well. I am a believer that clean living garners the best luck. I guess that includes credit score.

MW01 (MW[zero]1) worked today for 20% off.