abendorf

could you pm me please? i need to start my belated spring cleaning. thanks very much.

our friends at fatwallet believe that the rates are set by visa, etc. themselves. they did several comparisons between the visa, amex and mastercard exchange rates and found visa always to be the highest. it's an interesting read: http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/finance/1003682/?start=0 i heard that barclays used to offer a 0% mastercard but no longer does. anybody know of any others?

does anybody know of a 0% forex mastercard? i've got 0% forex visa and amex cards but i was reading that mastercard offers consistently better exchange rates for their currency conversion transactions than both visa and american express. the lowest forex surcharge i could find for mastercard is 1%. i searched and could only find the following: 0% forex visa schwab addison fcu penfed promise stanford fcu capital one ubs premier hsbc premier 0% forex amex penfed citi chairman 0% mastercard ???? any suggestions?

i received this exact same pre-aproval too. i'm wanting to fax back the form but am a bit uneasy about the ex hard pull (seeing i'm supposed to be on kona atm). last time i applied for their visa (about 2 years ago) they pulled ex and eq and denied me for "sufficient credit available". i'd hate to have them do that again. has anyone sent back their approval?

is it possible to re-opt in after you've frozen your report? if so, how does one do it?

before i discovered the board my scores were in the low-mid 600s. i had some careless lates (that i got rid of using tips outlined here on the board) and one particularly sticky 90 day late from a student loan that i finally got rid of through dogged persistence just last month. i also had waaaaaaaay too many inquiries from app sprees and expanding my credit lines (i now have almost 400k worth). i froze experian soon after i discovered cb, stopped applying for anything that pulled ex (i only cheated once and that was for the schwab visa). after i got rid of the bulk of the lates (the heavy lifting) i shifted my focus to paint and make-up and started using b* to get rid of all the tu inqs. i was getting chopped from the very beginning with eq and so the eq inqs wouldn't go away no matter how much softing i did. but then dr. tang helped me understand his "theorem of the magic 85" and so i planned and executed a perfect b* attack on eq and got rid of every last one of them (i say "perfect" because i calculated how many softs from each provider i needed down to the exact day when the last inq fell off. his theorem was spot on.) one point where i was lucky--i finished applying for new cards just when the cc companies started becoming stingy and cutting peoples' lines. i was virtually debt free at that point and so i avoided any aa that i know would have destroyed my credit lines had i not started expanding my credit lines when i did. my plan now is to go kona for a long break and let my accounts age and not apply for anything until the credit crunch gets better. thanks for the explanations about tu and fico '98. although i understand the issue now, i do wish i could get my tu fico up into the 800s. it's ironic that my tu is stuck at 781 as in the past tu was always my strongest score. i do not know my ex fico but assume it's very similar to eq as my eq and ex reports are virtually identical in every other respect. i belong to several other boards (for frequent travellers). their tone is overall quite negative and rather punitive to newbies seeking advice. here at creditboards i almost always found the tone to be supportive and helpful (both in public postings and private messages). thanks for that everyone. in my view, creditboards is unique because of this and i'm living proof that someone who knew (and cared) very little about their credit can turn a train wreck into something exemplary.

Nice scores. No, I don't think 40 is the magic number. The problem is actually the TransUnion scoring system you got the score from. That TU system uses the older '98 FICO algorithm, which has too many credit accounts as a negative factor. The newer TU FICO (which most lenders use, and we can't get access to on myfico.com) DOES NOT look at them the same way. As a data point, I too have scores over 800, and TU from myfico.com says the SAME thing for me as a negative factor, and I have less than 20 TLs. Also, on the listed negative, that is the only one, and under the FICO "High Achievers" section, it says they have an average of only 6 active TLs. Crazy low IMHO. The EQ FICO from myfico.com is a TRUE FICO score, using the most common algorithm, which DOES NOT look at too many TLs as a big negative. Hope that helps. SuperG thanks. i had no idea about fico '98.

thanks to everyone here at creditboards for their contributions to the forums. your tips, tricks and creative ideas have helped me substantially raise my credit scores during the past year. i owe a very special thanks to markca (for his help in increasing my softs last december) and dr tang (for discovering the magic 85 number). my (real) fico scores are now: equifax 806 transunion 781 does anyone know if 40 credit lines is the magic number when additional credit lines start to be considered as negatives against you in fico? i ask this because my equifax fico report (fico 806) shows 37 accounts listed and explains the following as to what is hurting my fico score: What’s hurting your FICO® score Because your FICO® score is exceptionally high, there are no actionable negative factors present with your score. Continue to manage your credit as you currently are doing to maintain your very high FICO® score. whereas my transunion fico report (fico 781) shows 40 accounts listed and explains the following: What's hurting your FICO® score You have too many credit accounts. What to do about this: Avoid opening more credit accounts at this time and as a general rule, if you don't need or plan to use credit, don't apply for it. does anyone have any suggestions about what i might do to my transunion report to get it up into the 800 range?

this looks like a great card--especially if you charge a lot overseas. was this a targeted mailing? i tried to find an app at the first national bank of omaha website but couldn't find a "vertical" visa and all the bucksback visas have a 3% foreign exchange surcharge listed in the terms and conditions. has anyone seen a link to the 0% foreign exchange version?

hi sonica, please re-read my post #10 above. for b* on eq, not all softs count. **only** the non-indexed inquires (i.e. if it has letters in front such as "nd", "prm", "ar", etc., these do not help with b*). also, as best i can tell, nothing from eq (indexed or otherwise) counts either. by my count you have exactly 85 soft/hards that count towards b* which explains why you saw b*. b* starts with your oldest hard/soft inquiry so now that you have reached the magic number, you will b* the oldest one with each new pull. this means that depending on the age of your hards, you may not see them (hards) b* everyday as if there are older softs than your hards, they will bump first. i count the following for you. hard inqs 18 cic/experian alerts 2 credit expert 36 truecredit vertue 15 fair isaac 11 truecredit coverlly(?) 1 true link 1 true link 1 total 85 i am unfamiliar with what truelink is (perhaps i misread the letters as they are hard to see) but it apparently counts as without them you would only be at 83 and wouldn't have started to see b* yet. tangmeister and bob wang would know more. note too that you are being chopped so you will loose many of your softs whenever eq chops you next and will have to build back up to the magic 85 number again.

it's important to remember that on eq it's 85 *non-indexed*, *non-eq* based pulls (including the hards you already have), not just 85 soft pulls to get b* on eq. i can confirm that 85 is the magic number. for months i was trying to get the inquiries on my eq credit report to b* but never had any luck. at times i had in excess of 200 soft pulls showing on my eq report and nothing happened. it was frustrating and i thought i was immune to getting b* on eq. it was only when i learned from tangmeister's great analysis which softs actually count toward the magic number of 85 to get b* on eq that i was finally able to plan my b* attack correctly and b* the eq inquiries. make certain you are only including the softs that count toward that 85 magic number--otherwise you're in for a frustrating failure in getting b* from eq (as i was for so many months).

i too followed the good doctor's recommendations and can confirm that dr. t's formula is 100% correct. eq b* is absolutely predictable to the exact pull. i struggled for months trying to get as many softs any way possible and while i could always wipe out my tu inquiries i was never, ever successful at b* even one with eq (they chop me each month). this month i followed dr. t's formula and took on a third daily soft puller. i then started counting *only* the non-indexed softs from fair isaac, cct, cic/experian alerts (not sure how i got those but they do count), mpm & mck (before it got killed--incidentally the replacement first advantage/credco (all 1 pull of it) does count too). as soon as the 86th countable pull hit, the countable (non-indexed) softs and hards started being bumped off with each additional pull--oldest first. again, the important part here is knowing what pulls count. 4 more pulls and i'll be eq inquiry free for the first time ever (and i'll be able to do it before my eq circumcision on the 17th). the moral of this story is that you absolutely can calculate b* on eq down to the exact pull. it's just a matter of knowing what pulls count and what pulls do not. i will post a broader post showing the before and after soft tally's next week.

congrats on not letting your integrity trump the ethics of gaining a great card in this equation. i have had it for a year and can't say enough good about it. 0% forex, 0 annual fee and 2% cash back on everything. (the 0% forex is especially rewarding when you travel internationally). and lastly, the customer service is peerless. all around, it's a great card.

I called the security freeze department (not credit watch) and they keep saying that the report is unlocked even if that sentence appears on my file (Security freeze in place). She said that it shows in my report because I have credit watch feature. She said that the creditor should be able to pull my repot. Is there a way to test it? I mean is there any creditor that pulls soft inq? I just want to see if my report is locked or not. EQ people keep saying that it is unlocked. I just want to see if they are right or not. i believe you can test if your equifax report is locked or not by doing a prequal for an hsbc credit card. try this link: https://www.hsbcapply.com/start/hsbccreditcard/ if it comes back with an error, it should mean that your file is locked as hsbc uses equifax to pull a soft for your preselector.

hi markca, could you please pm me the details too? thanks very much.