Improving My 620 Score, Tips and Tricks, Self Credit Builder Loan, Two Secured Credit Cards...

[Kat58]

2 hours ago, creditimprover said:

 

Does anyone have any suggestions on increasing my limit? See below from Capital One.

 

"Your minimum security deposit requirement gets you a $200 initial credit line. You have until Sept. 2, 2020 to make deposits.
You can also deposit more than the minimum required security deposit to get a higher initial credit line before you activate your card. You can increase your initial Credit Line up to $1,000."

 

I plan to just put my $7.99 a month Spotify purchase on this card and nothing else. Should I still increase? I also have my $500 limit Open Sky account.

 

My goal is to keep my total balance below 10% and potentially even below 7%.

 

Thanks all! 

Definitely secure your card with the max allowed... if possible.

 

[WestCoastKid]

7 hours ago, creditimprover said:

Hi all!

 

Approved for the Cap One Secured platinum card. I was required to submit a deposit of $49 for a $200 credit limit (which is the lowest deposit - so that's a good sign.) Great news, it appears that it didn't affect my FICO scores but dropped my VantageScore on Equifax from Credit Karma by only 1 point - nothing to cry over.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions on increasing my limit? See below from Capital One.

 

"Your minimum security deposit requirement gets you a $200 initial credit line. You have until Sept. 2, 2020 to make deposits.
You can also deposit more than the minimum required security deposit to get a higher initial credit line before you activate your card. You can increase your initial Credit Line up to $1,000."

 

I plan to just put my $7.99 a month Spotify purchase on this card and nothing else. Should I still increase? I also have my $500 limit Open Sky account.

 

My goal is to keep my total balance below 10% and potentially even below 7%.

 

Thanks all! 

If you can afford it, I'd go with the max $849 which gives you $1k limit, which is what I did.  After a year they bumped to 1300 (unsecured).

It's better to have 1k limit than a $200 for practical reasons I think, it will also help you get higher limits with other creditors in the future since higher limits tend to beget higher limits.

[creditimprover]

45 minutes ago, WestCoastKid said:

If you can afford it, I'd go with the max $849 which gives you $1k limit, which is what I did.  After a year they bumped to 1300 (unsecured).

It's better to have 1k limit than a $200 for practical reasons I think, it will also help you get higher limits with other creditors in the future since higher limits tend to beget higher limits.

Super helpful! I was wondering what the deposit was to bump it up to $1,000.

 

Were they pretty quick to refund your deposit when they bumped you to unsecured? Not really an issue since it will be a year later or more but just wondering.

 

Thanks for the info! 

[WestCoastKid]

They do a combination of giving you an unsecured increase and crediting/refunding the deposit.

[pwd847]

You should be able to up your deposit.  I maxed out my deposit to $3,000 a month or two before I knew I was gonna apply for other cards.  If they still allow you to add to your deposit, I would just put in the minimum so you still have your cash for bills, and then add more later on.

 

This actually reminds me, I should probably get my $3,000 back.  They have held it hostage since 2015.....this is my oldest TL.

[elFloyd01]

On 7/27/2020 at 10:37 AM, DPB said:

Are you just seeing CO reported 47 times on your report for the delinquent loans?

In that case, you don’t have 47 charge-offs. You’d have 3 reporting multiple months of CO status - assuming the closed with $0 balance loan isn’t reporting as charged-off. 
I have no personal experience with student loans loans, but can’t they be rehabbed? And can’t a delinquent borrower that enters such a program have the delinquent reporting removed upon meeting certain requirements? I’m somewhat certain that I’ve read that somewhere in this forum. 

No direct experience with student loans either... but my son is trying to raise credit score for a home mortgage. He has several student loans with missed payment. I don’t think any were charged off. He called and had them consolidated. Within a week all the old loans showed as paid and closed. All the missed payments are gone. And his score on all three bureaus increased by 40 - 43 points. YMMV. Hope this helps.

[creditimprover]

Thanks everyone for your help so far! Wanted to give an exciting update.

 

I started the student loan rehabilitation process! The great thing is that they're adding no interest during this time - so 4/9 of my payments will not accrue interest. I was able to accelerate it a bit and pay my July / August payments within a couple of days of each other - so I will finish in eight months instead of nine. Once the nine payments are complete in March I plan on paying off the remainder of the balance in full and being completely done with these student loans! 

 

I also have my $500 secured card from Open Sky, opened a Capital One secured card with a $1,000 balance with hopes to graduate it after a year at a higher limit, and just opened a credit builder card through my bank today - bringing my credit file to three which should greatly improve my score after months of on time payments. I am continuing to plan to keep my utilization for all three cards under 7% and pay on time monthly. 

 

My FICO scores are up 5-10 points across the board and my Vantage scores went up 39 points on Equifax and Transunion. They were lower than my FICO, as assumed, so are sitting at 602 and 607 with the increase.

 

Question: I wanted to ask if anyone knew about disputing or having a closed student loan account removed from my report with $0 balance? I know that the three student loans I am rehabilitating will be removed from default and moved to open status once I complete the program, but I still have one loan that is fully paid and closed but has 13 missed payments - 87% of the payments made on time. It's the only loan out of the four loans that reports missed payments (surprisingly the three I am rehabilitating don't report any missed payments) so it would be ideal to have this one taken off. Not sure if that's even possible.

 

Can't wait to give everyone the next update. 

[cv91915]

2 hours ago, creditimprover said:

Thanks everyone for your help so far! Wanted to give an exciting update.

 

I started the student loan rehabilitation process! The great thing is that they're adding no interest during this time - so 4/9 of my payments will not accrue interest. I was able to accelerate it a bit and pay my July / August payments within a couple of days of each other - so I will finish in eight months instead of nine. Once the nine payments are complete in March I plan on paying off the remainder of the balance in full and being completely done with these student loans! 

 

I also have my $500 secured card from Open Sky, opened a Capital One secured card with a $1,000 balance with hopes to graduate it after a year at a higher limit, and just opened a credit builder card through my bank today - bringing my credit file to three which should greatly improve my score after months of on time payments. I am continuing to plan to keep my utilization for all three cards under 7% and pay on time monthly. 

 

My FICO scores are up 5-10 points across the board

 

 

I don't know the answer to your question, but I did want to commend you for the positive steps so far!!  Keep it going!!

[pwd847]

On 7/28/2020 at 9:59 PM, WestCoastKid said:

I would definitely go for the CapOne secured.  It has no annual fee and they are pretty good about unsecuring after a year.  May drop your score temporarily, but after a few months it will help to have at least 2 open positive accounts instead of just one.

Unsecuring after a year?  Since when?  I've had mine since 2015 and it's not unsecured.

[WestCoastKid]

On 8/11/2020 at 5:07 AM, pwd847 said:

Unsecuring after a year?  Since when?  I've had mine since 2015 and it's not unsecured.

Could be wrong on this- but, if I recall, something changed around 2016/17 with their secured card where new accounts opened after that point started to get automatically reviewed for partial or full unsecuring starting after 12 months. I believe this was the same point when they changed their max deposit/limit down to 849/1000, from a $3k max before that.

 

Or could be because I used mine a lot and would make multiple payments throughout a month sometimes.

Edited August 12, 2020 by WestCoastKid

[pwd847]

19 hours ago, WestCoastKid said:

Could be wrong on this- but, if I recall, something changed around 2016/17 with their secured card where new accounts opened after that point started to get automatically reviewed for partial or full unsecuring starting after 12 months. I believe this was the same point when they changed their max deposit/limit down to 849/1000, from a $3k max before that.

 

Or could be because I used mine a lot and would make multiple payments throughout a month sometimes.

Oh ok.  Yeah I still have the full $3,000 deposit with a $3,300 CL.  I'll try calling them.

[mendelssohn]

On 7/24/2020 at 3:32 PM, creditimprover said:

I'm hoping I can get some tips on rebuilding my credit and really maximizing a higher score over the next six months.

My score has drastically improved from low 300s a few years ago and is now sitting at low 600's. I removed a lot of accounts and really cleaned up my report.

FICO 8; Experian - 604, Equifax - 620, TransUnion - 618

Most recently in the past month, I had a final collection removed from these accounts which boosted each of them to the above scores ~40 points.

My first step was getting a secured credit card. I have the Open Sky card with a $500 limit. It first reported on my credit report a few days ago and dropped each score 3-4 points, as expected. Any suggestions on maximizing this account to grow my score quicker?

Other accounts on my report include 4 closed US Department of Education Loans.

Three of them have balances - $6,000; $5,500; and $3,300 and 47 charge offs (Im looking to start paying these again as I have the means, especially if it can help my credit score). One of them is closed with $0 balance and 13 late payments.

I'm thinking of opening a Self Credit Builder Loan to help increase my score quicker. Does anyone have experience with this? Do you think it will help based on the above or hurt my score? Does anyone have experience if paying a larger monthly fee helps your score more or not?

I'm hoping to raise my score by ~70 points over the next six months so I can have my score in "Good" status and be approved to rent an apartment on my own - no guarantor.

Also, my bank is opening a secured card - Chime. I am close to being off the waitlist. Would another secured card hurt my credit? Is there any benefit?

Any tips, suggestions, experience with the above, etc would be greatly appreciated.

 I'm not sure how much of this applies today, but I was in a similar situation with student loans. This is a long thread, but you can see the strategies I attempted along the way.

 

https://creditboards.com/forums/index.php?/topic/524818-mendelssohns-road-to-760/

[hyrpxmyd]

-I’d be careful on paying the Charged-off accounts (you’ll reset the statute of limitation)
-Chime doesn’t report to the bureaus yet
-Non traditional tradelines (self, boost, etc) are not calculated in all scoring models
-add yourself as an authorized user to someone’s credit card(s) that are older than 5 years,never been late, used in the past 90 days, and has a balance under 10% of the limit
-most landlords don’t have access to full credit reports just a pass/fail report which is strictly based on score so before you apply dispute your negative items and that will artificially increase your score

Good luck!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[creditimprover]

On 8/14/2020 at 11:11 PM, hyrpxmyd said:

-I’d be careful on paying the Charged-off accounts (you’ll reset the statute of limitation)
-Chime doesn’t report to the bureaus yet
-Non traditional tradelines (self, boost, etc) are not calculated in all scoring models
-add yourself as an authorized user to someone’s credit card(s) that are older than 5 years,never been late, used in the past 90 days, and has a balance under 10% of the limit
-most landlords don’t have access to full credit reports just a pass/fail report which is strictly based on score so before you apply dispute your negative items and that will artificially increase your score

Good luck!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks for the help!

 

-All of the charged off accounts are student loans that I am no rehabilitating. So, they will go to open status and the default will be removed. Since they're student loans they wont fall off my report while open - so the best route is to pay them off. This will also help my score because they will no longer be in default.

-Chime's credit builder card actually reports to all three credit bureaus! 

-Didn't end up doing any of these. Went for the secured credit card and student loan rehab route.

-I know this is a great idea for most people but also not a reality for a lot of people. Sadly, I don't have anyone who can add me to their account.

-No negative items besides my student loans. Given the rental market in NYC, I'm hoping that my score will be 650 by the time I go to rent and if they have any questions about the loans, I can show them my student rehab forms prove I am on track to have those negative marks removed and paid in full by March. My goal is to move into a place February 1 - so I'm hoping that them knowing it will be resolved in 1 month will be a good sign. 

[creditimprover]

On 8/13/2020 at 6:55 PM, mendelssohn said:

 I'm not sure how much of this applies today, but I was in a similar situation with student loans. This is a long thread, but you can see the strategies I attempted along the way.

 

https://creditboards.com/forums/index.php?/topic/524818-mendelssohns-road-to-760/

Can't wait to read this! I love that it's 90 pages so I'm to find so much useful info. Thanks for sharing and congrats on rebuild! 

Edited August 16, 2020 by creditimprover

[mendelssohn]

On 8/16/2020 at 6:38 PM, creditimprover said:

Can't wait to read this! I love that it's 90 pages so I'm to find so much useful info. Thanks for sharing and congrats on rebuild! 

Thanks, and good luck!

[creditimprover]

Was wondering if anyone might be able to help me with my most recent score drop.

 

I logged on today and noticed my Experian score dropped 14 points. The only change that was updated was my new balance on my Open Sky card with a limit of $500 which was $0 compared to $35 before. This is because I paid the bill and haven't used it again since.

 

Can you credit score drop because you don't have a balance on your card? Is 0% utilization worse than say 7% utilization? 

 

Thanks all! 

[hegemony]

51 minutes ago, creditimprover said:

Was wondering if anyone might be able to help me with my most recent score drop.

 

I logged on today and noticed my Experian score dropped 14 points. The only change that was updated was my new balance on my Open Sky card with a limit of $500 which was $0 compared to $35 before. This is because I paid the bill and haven't used it again since.

 

Can you credit score drop because you don't have a balance on your card? Is 0% utilization worse than say 7% utilization? 

 

Thanks all! 

14 points is NOT statistically significant (assuming you are talking about FICO scores not FAKO scores).

 

Other things change as all your creditor submit another month of data to the four major CRAs. That is, your history (AAoA) changes as well as balances.

 

Search on CB the key work segmentation and you'll also see why score changes are often not linear.

 

Put differently, don't fret about a few points either direction.

[creditimprover]

55 minutes ago, hegemony said:

14 points is NOT statistically significant (assuming you are talking about FICO scores not FAKO scores).

 

Other things change as all your creditor submit another month of data to the four major CRAs. That is, your history (AAoA) changes as well as balances.

 

Search on CB the key work segmentation and you'll also see why score changes are often not linear.

 

Put differently, don't fret about a few points either direction.

Helpful, thank you! I think I ultimately got discouraged because it dropped me back under 600 when I had gotten it up to 607. 

 

Will press forward! 

[hegemony]

49 minutes ago, creditimprover said:

Helpful, thank you! I think I ultimately got discouraged because it dropped me back under 600 when I had gotten it up to 607. 

 

Will press forward! 

it happens. when you're rebuilding and/or have a thin file small changes can seem to have a large impact on scores but keep your eyes on the prize -- cleaner reports with high(er) quality cards reporting matters the most in the long run and FICO scores will follow.

[mendelssohn]

0% utilization is not ideal, but don’t confuse utilization with carrying a balance.

[MarcuzAgrippa]

On 7/24/2020 at 4:32 PM, creditimprover said:

I'm hoping I can get some tips on rebuilding my credit and really maximizing a higher score over the next six months.

My score has drastically improved from low 300s a few years ago and is now sitting at low 600's. I removed a lot of accounts and really cleaned up my report.

FICO 8; Experian - 604, Equifax - 620, TransUnion - 618

Most recently in the past month, I had a final collection removed from these accounts which boosted each of them to the above scores ~40 points.

My first step was getting a secured credit card. I have the Open Sky card with a $500 limit. It first reported on my credit report a few days ago and dropped each score 3-4 points, as expected. Any suggestions on maximizing this account to grow my score quicker?

Other accounts on my report include 4 closed US Department of Education Loans.

Three of them have balances - $6,000; $5,500; and $3,300 and 47 charge offs (Im looking to start paying these again as I have the means, especially if it can help my credit score). One of them is closed with $0 balance and 13 late payments.

I'm thinking of opening a Self Credit Builder Loan to help increase my score quicker. Does anyone have experience with this? Do you think it will help based on the above or hurt my score? Does anyone have experience if paying a larger monthly fee helps your score more or not?

I'm hoping to raise my score by ~70 points over the next six months so I can have my score in "Good" status and be approved to rent an apartment on my own - no guarantor.

Also, my bank is opening a secured card - Chime. I am close to being off the waitlist. Would another secured card hurt my credit? Is there any benefit?

Any tips, suggestions, experience with the above, etc would be greatly appreciated.

Not sure if you got that Secured Card from Chime but I would run from that "bank" if I was you. I'm currently going through arbitration against them and thousands of others are as well during this pandemic. They literally closed my account and told me they won't give me any of the money in my checking or savings back. Combined its over $5k I was saving up to help work on rebuilding my credit. A secured card is of course different than a bank account but I would still be cautious.

[Smdobbs87]

On 8/16/2020 at 7:37 PM, creditimprover said:

Thanks for the help!

 

-All of the charged off accounts are student loans that I am no rehabilitating. So, they will go to open status and the default will be removed. Since they're student loans they wont fall off my report while open - so the best route is to pay them off. This will also help my score because they will no longer be in default.

-Chime's credit builder card actually reports to all three credit bureaus! 

-Didn't end up doing any of these. Went for the secured credit card and student loan rehab route.

-I know this is a great idea for most people but also not a reality for a lot of people. Sadly, I don't have anyone who can add me to their account.

-No negative items besides my student loans. Given the rental market in NYC, I'm hoping that my score will be 650 by the time I go to rent and if they have any questions about the loans, I can show them my student rehab forms prove I am on track to have those negative marks removed and paid in full by March. My goal is to move into a place February 1 - so I'm hoping that them knowing it will be resolved in 1 month will be a good sign. 

Instead of getting more secured cards, you should get secured loans - they operate the same way as secured cards, but are a little easier to manage, and the best part is you get to keep the money you shelled out for the loan to begin with. For instance, you have $500 in your savings account, and you inform the bank that you want a secured loan. They turn that $500 into a loan, making the $500 available to you. Then you go to another bank and put the $500 into the savings account and inform that bank that you want a secured loan, and bank 2 turns the $500 into a secured loan, and you still have your $500. You then go to the last bank, bank 3, and ask them for a secured loan after putting the $500 into their savings account, and once they turn this into a loan, you use the $500 to make your initial payments on each three loans, use the remainder for whatever needs you have, and you’ve just gotten three revolving accounts with no issue and no major tie up of your account. 

 

As far as an authorized user, you can use tradelines, where people offer to add you as an authorized user to increase your age of credit or to add necessary credit mix to your account. 

 

I hope this expands your view as to some possibilities to repairing your credit. 

[creditimprover]

On 9/10/2020 at 9:54 AM, MarcuzAgrippa said:

Not sure if you got that Secured Card from Chime but I would run from that "bank" if I was you. I'm currently going through arbitration against them and thousands of others are as well during this pandemic. They literally closed my account and told me they won't give me any of the money in my checking or savings back. Combined its over $5k I was saving up to help work on rebuilding my credit. A secured card is of course different than a bank account but I would still be cautious.

I hope you get this resolved - obviously not an ideal situation during a pandemic.

 

Have you ever had issues with them before? I have had the bank for quite some time now and never had any problems. Did they give you any clue or "reasoning" as to why they closed your account? Even if the reason is not valid.

 

I ended up getting the secured card and can't really close it now with risk of hurting my credit more. 

On 9/12/2020 at 9:24 PM, Smdobbs87 said:

Instead of getting more secured cards, you should get secured loans - they operate the same way as secured cards, but are a little easier to manage, and the best part is you get to keep the money you shelled out for the loan to begin with. For instance, you have $500 in your savings account, and you inform the bank that you want a secured loan. They turn that $500 into a loan, making the $500 available to you. Then you go to another bank and put the $500 into the savings account and inform that bank that you want a secured loan, and bank 2 turns the $500 into a secured loan, and you still have your $500. You then go to the last bank, bank 3, and ask them for a secured loan after putting the $500 into their savings account, and once they turn this into a loan, you use the $500 to make your initial payments on each three loans, use the remainder for whatever needs you have, and you’ve just gotten three revolving accounts with no issue and no major tie up of your account. 

 

As far as an authorized user, you can use tradelines, where people offer to add you as an authorized user to increase your age of credit or to add necessary credit mix to your account. 

 

I hope this expands your view as to some possibilities to repairing your credit. 

Thanks for this information! I currently have three cards and was planning to build my credit with this. I have heard a lot of negative feedback about secured loans and been told to avoid them if I can. Does anybody else have any thoughts on this based on my current credit profile? 

 

Also, would love to hear more about tradelines. Is this something that could hurt my credit, as well? 

 

I feel like with my three secured cards, I don't want to do too much? I'm also rehabilitating my loans, so my student loan balances have been going down each month and are reporting lower balances to the credit agencies. The defaults wont be removed until March when the program completes, but I feel like that will have a major boost to my credit on top of the three secured cards which I have and plan to continue posting exceptional payment history / no carry over balance. 

 

Is it worth it to do the loan and the tradelines or one vs the other or should I take a break and focus on these three cards for now? 

[hegemony]

I would let the 3 cards report for a few months and then try prescreened offers (see the sticky thread of prescreen sites)... assuming you are not opted out. Adding an installment account cuts both ways -- yes it is positive for FICO "type of accounts" factors but it will be negative as a new account hitting your AAoA. I don't see as much value added at your stage of adding an installment account just for FICO purposes. Stick with building-out your revolving accounts -- ideally you'll want 5 (but again I'd wait a few months to get these reporting before adding more).