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The Crappy Beginning Many moons ago, I destroyed my credit. My Amex (opened in 1986) and Discover (1988?) cards went to collections. So did my student loans. They were all eventually paid off. I think that the credit cards were paid off in 1994. The student loans were finally paid off. 2002? Not sure, but definitely paid off. Well I live in Manhattan, so I don’t need a car. I have an insanely good apartment situation, so no need for a mortgage. I didn’t believe that I needed credit, so why bother? Several years ago, I rented some storage space. They checked my credit. I was told that I had no credit. Not a problem. As long as I didn’t have bad credit, I was still able to rent space. Last month I was cleaning up online accounts. Amazon, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, online communities, you name it. I was making sure that everything had a unique password, with a computer program for this sort of thing. With everything cleaned up and organized, I started to join rewards programs for airlines, hotels, and car rentals. When I got to Hertz, my debit MasterCard was rejected. No credit card, no membership. Now, I’m not looking to rent a car anytime soon, but this bothered me. I wasn’t mad at Hertz. I was mad at me. I put myself in this situation. Now I wanted to fix it. It wasn’t just Hertz. A few months ago, I borrowed several thousand from my 401K to buy stuff. If I had credit, that could have been handled differently. And deep down I had always been bothered by my loss of the Amex account. It said member since 86. I just assumed that if the day came that I got a new Amex card, the member since date would be the year of the new card. That new year would always be a symbol of failure for me. No one else would know, but I would know. So I started this journey back to good credit knowing next to nothing, and with the thinnest of files. A First App Spree I applied for Discover. They declined me, but offered a secured card. I sent in $200. That would enable me to join Hertz’s rewards program, and in a year, it should convert to an unsecured card. How little did I know? I applied for a Chase Slate card (I had no balances to transfer,) a Citi Simplicity card (again, no balances to transfer,) an L.L. Bean card from Barclays, a CapOne QuicksilverOne, and an AmEx BCE. Citibank instantly declined me. CapOne instantly approved me, and graciously accepted my $39 for a card with a $300 limit. Amex, Barclays, and Chase needed to think about it. Barclay’s finally let me know. Declined. I called the recon line. The rep seemed like he wanted to give me the card, but no FICO score, no deal. Chase let me know that I was declined. By this time, I was getting a bit more knowledgable, so I decided not to call the recon number because the Slate is really not the card for me. That UNFCU Azure card caught my attention. I joined that credit union, but have yet to apply. I’ll wait until I have a FICO score. Amex finally let me know. I was positive that I was going to be declined. I was approved! It seemed like forever to get the card. I went online, set things up, and saw that my credit line was $2,000! Now $2K isn’t very good. When everyone else, however, has either declined you, or given you no more than $300, $2K feels awesome! I wanted an EMV chip, so I called Amex to request a card with one. My account was too new. Call back in a few weeks, and then a card with an EMV chip could be requested. I keep reading and learning. My utilization rate needs to be low. That’s not easy with the $200 and $300 cards. It’s manageable with the Amex. I’m paying them weekly to keep my utilization rate under 25%. That “CARD MEMBER SINCE 2014” from Amex was still a symbol of personal shame. More googling, reading, and learning. I eventually find the *D thread. I made some phone calls. No dice. I posted in that thread, and ElGringo offered a tip to use online chat. It worked! I was told that a new card would be sent to me. I asked to wait a week because I was going to request a card with an EMV chip. A few hours later, I get an e-mail notifying me that a new card is being sent my way. No mention of the EMV chip. Last week my new card arrived. That “86” is a symbol of redemption. It means more to me than the AAOA boost that it will provide. I wasn’t going to apply for anything else this year, but NASA FCU and $30K limits with no hard pulls was calling my name. I joined the credit union. Waited until that was complete. I then applied. Instant denial. The Credit Scores, or Lack Thereof So what’s my FICO score today? I still don’t have one, as far as I know. Discover says "We don't have a FICO Credit Score for you. CapOne says that my FICO is 0, but it can’t be 0. Recently I used SmartCredit.com’s one week trial. It’s not a FICO score, but similar. There’s a negative item (a judgement) that I almost forgot about, which might why they gave me this non-FICO score: I got into a squeeze in 2010, and wound up in court with my apartment complex. They got a judgement issued on me. It was paid in full. Looking at the correspondence from the banks that declined me, Discover (declined for an unsecured card) was the only one to mention that judgement. Those that used Equifax or Experian made no mention of this. Because I was declined by banks, I can get free copies of my credit report. The only one that I’ve read so far is from Experian. I just pulled it up today. NASA did three soft pulls, but no hard pulls. There were three, and only three, hard pulls. They came from Barclays, CapOne, and Chase. Amex didn’t use Experian at all. They seem to have pulled TransUnion, going by SmartCredit.com. I’m not sure if I should worry about the judgement. If I understand correctly, the judgement falls off of my credit report after five years in New York, and it seems to be only on TransUnion. Moving Forward to 800 Here’s the plan. Get CLIs, keep my utilization low, pay everything on time, and get the following cards: Another Amex (I’m leaning to the no-annual fee EveryDay for AAOA) Citi Double Cash (as a MasterCard World Elite, if possible) Chase Sapphire Preferred NASA FCU cash rewards Sallie Mae MasterCard UNFCU Azure I’m also thinking about getting a personal loan to pay off the 401K loan. If I can get all of that done, I’ll reward myself by applying for a JCB card. I want one just to have one. So, I’m thinking of an order of doing these things that’s something like this: Request a 3x CLI for the Amex BCE at 61 days Wait for a FICO score (not sure if I have to wait six months, or if my *D’d Amex gets this to happen next month) Apply for UNFCU Azure (request a CLI six months later) Apply for NASA FCU VISA (request a CLI six months later) Apply for a personal loan Apply for Amex EveryDay on January 1st, or after I have a FICO score Apply for Sallie Mae MasterCard in March, 2015 Request a 2x CLI for the Amex BCE in May, 2015 Request to convert and CLI the Discover It secured to unsecured in August, 2015 Request to convert and CLI the QuicksilverOne to a Quicksilver VISA signature in August, 2015 Apply for Chase Sapphire Preferred in October, 2015 Request a 2x CLI for the Amex BCE in November, 2015 Apply for Citi Double Cash in January, 2016 Apply for a JCB card in March, 2016 Request a 3x CLI for the AmEx EveryDay in May, 2016 Questions for the CB community Should I worry about that judgement? How can my plan to build credit be improved?

My son is 19 years old, has a good head on his shoulders and is very fiscally responsible for his age (he's sitting on several thousand in his checking account after building for a couple years and working full time while going to a local college). We've discussed a lot about credit, trying to teach him the ins-and-outs that I wish I had known. I AU'd him on several cards a couple months ago - AmEx BCE for the future *D when he gets his own, a couple of USAA Visa/MC (He's a full member with his own login/insurance policy for over a year now), and a comenity Beall's account. All of these are 100% in good standing and decent limits with low/no util. This week we app'd for a USAA Student Mastercard, approved for $300. Also hit them up for a USAA Visa, but no joy (reason returned as "insufficient credit history, kinda expected but worth a try). Went ahead and got him in at NFCU with my referral and opened a savings account as well as getting an approval for a NFCU Visa nRewardsa at $1500. He's wanting to move a couple grand into savings at Navy Fed as well. Gave him both barrels about treating NFCU right and having a financial ally for life. He still lives at home and comes to me with questions so I'll have a good chance to keep an eye on his fiscal behavior. So, at this point, he's sitting on two unsecured "real" credit cards 100% in his own name, plus the above AU's. I'm thinking it's a good time to let it ride for 6+ months to build his file a bit. Told him maybe after the new year take out a loan secured with his Jeep (he owns it outright) just to add a little installment loan history to his file mix. Anything else we should look at doing right away? I'm sure we're a couple years out from a *d'able AmEx of his own (his income right now is only around 15k) - so that's a mid-long term goal... Thoughts? I just wish I had gotten the same head start at his age. I'm almost 40 and just now figuring out the credit game.

Hi, guys, TU just deleted the last derog on my credit report – a paid federal tax lien that the IRS withdrew. I now have a clean but thin file with: one car loan just paid off; one new car loan reporting one month (DCU); one DCU visa (reporting one month); one Cap1secured card reporting since November. My oldest credit account is four years old – that’s the car loan I just paid off. I had another positive older car loan that was reporting well but just aged off. With these stats, could I expect to be approved for Barclay’s Arrival World MC? I really like the card because I travel a lot, the rewards look great and it has 0% APR for the first year. No other rewards travel card looks that good. Do you think I should give it a try? I haven’t pulled my TU Fico, but it was 649 back in November so I imagine it would be a lot higher now. My EQ Fico is 684. And I have three inquiries on TU. Before I came to CB, I apped Barclay in November for their average credit card and was declined. It was dumb of me because I had the lien AND a paid judgement on my report and no positive revolving credit. Since they’re so conservative, it is worth it to me to try it this early on in my rebuilding? If you think it’s too much of a long shot, can you suggest a better option to earn travel rewards. Thanks so much!

My credit profile is rather thin. We've mainly been cash payers for years and let our credit go to crap. I haven't gotten my real FICO scores (only FAKOs) CK: 645 and CS: 700ish My positives: Capital One Secured $300 CL $1.22 balance Opened 12/12 no lates US Bank Platinum (AU on Hubs acct) $9000 CL $725 balance opened 3/13 no lates. Chase SW (AU on Hubs acct) $8500 CL $3000 balance opened 7/13 no lates. Car loan paid in full set to fall off 4/13 no lates My negatives: BofA DOFD 09/08, settled for less than full balance. Set to fall off 09/15. I'm sure I have at least one reason to dispute, which I will likely post to its own thread. HSBC CO (sold to Cap One) set to fall off 01/2014. I'm thinking I'm in pretty good shape to apply for a card in my name alone that's not secured. There are 2 inquiries on my reports. My thoughts are that I should start applying after the CO falls off in January and BEFORE the positive car loan TL falls off in April 2014. SOOoooooooo. What say you?