nathanmedic

I did the same thing with a card (its limit was cut from $1K to $300). I was angry and told them if they didn't raise the limit back up, then I would close the card. They basically said "fine" and I closed it. My credit score went down a little, because it was one of my older cards. If you've only had it 6 months however, you shouldn't see any effect at all from letting it go. In fact, if your average age of lines is > 6 months and you have a good amount of open credit, you might see your score go up! The deciding factor is that you have an annual fee. Get rid of that junk before any annual fee gets charged again. You might want to wait until a month or two before the annual fee is due to cancel, just to get the most from it.

Good luck!

Nathan

The following cards approved me w/ a bankruptcy on my record (note: I had a Capital One card first, my score was in the 690s - Transrisk and a perfect credit record since the bankruptcy, which was 9 yrs ago) ... These were approved within the last 4 years:  Chase Freedom, Discover More, Travelocity American Express (plus the Cap One card). I have been declined for a better Capital One Card and at least one other due to the Bankruptcy. I try to CALL THE COMPANY FIRST if it's not already expressed (Amazon.com Visa Card states up front ... if it asks you if you had a bankruptcy in the last 10 years, don't apply). 

Forgot to mention: debt to income ratio is 3 - 4% and I use about 3% of available credit currently. 

For what it's worth, I just had the exact same experience (including an account that was deleted). I have no idea how they can confuse what I clearly worded in the "dispute" (such as correcting the credit limit or balance info) with what action they took. Very frustrating. I didn't lose a lot of credit points, but I lost my oldest tradeline - which was actually a significant blow to that element.

My advice (or at least what I'm going to do): if the difference isn't that significant, just leave it alone.

bgridley1 - Perhaps you were referencing dkb45's statement, which is inaccurate? That might explain the confusion and, if so, then I apologize for my overreaction.

Bgridley, I'd suggest you read my response again ... where on Earth did you get that the debt may not show or affect your score?

Here is my quote: "Medical bills are not looked on as badly as other bills by potential creditors, but it is a myth that they are ignored. So try to resolve it if you can."

What I will state is this:

1) Though not as much as they used to be, medical bills are not looked on as badly as other debt.

2) It is usually a MUCH longer time before medical debt is reported to a credit agency. Let me give you some help here: I work for a 1,000 bed hospital. I work closely with our billing dept. All hospitals are not the same, but most are.

3) Hospitals (and other medical groups) are often more willing than other creditors to work out payment plans, etc. This is changing for the worse as the new medical laws take effect (and with the recession), as they have resulted in more aggressive hospital collection policies.

4) Once reported, their debt has just as much effect as any other debt, EXCEPT that creditors looking specifically for "type of debt" tend to be more forgiving of medical debt. The "scoring systems" are NOT.
 

I hope this clears up bgridley1's complete miscontruing of my statement.

Nathan
 

Yes, they will remove the account and it will shorten your average credit history. The difference in your credit score is pretty minimal - I recently went from an average of 5 years (with a long of 15 years) to an average of 2 years, and it dropped my score by 4 points (I am around 700, building back from an '02 bankruptcy).

If you have late payments (because of your ex-), this is a far more negative weight than the positive of reducing the length of credit history, not to mention it might get eventually removed anyway. Also, if the account is still open, don't even THINK about leaving the chance that you could get burned further. That would truly be asking for trouble. My sister managed to do this exact thing to me - to the tune of $8,000 (part of my bankruptcy!) - and that was my own family! Yikes! :)

Good luck,

Nathan

You've got to contact the company, because as I stated and is stated in the articles above, the companies WILL report it to the credit bureau and will take all kinds of other nasty actions against you, but they MUST remove it if you were only an authorized user. Just keep in mind the differences between an "authorized user" and a co-holder of credit, in which case you were equally responsible. If you were just an authorized, user, you have to promptly get them to remove this from your report. If the company doesn't cooperate (they often don't), you have to involve any of the 3 credit agencies whose reports it is showing up on.

If you don't, it most certainly WILL affect your score.

Good luck!

Nathan

Your only real choice to start rebuilding at first is a secured credit card (you put the deposit money up front, e.g., $200 - this is still your money; if you close the account, you get it back) and then use the card once a month for something small (and of course, pay it off). There's very often an annual fee, as well. It's kind of like having a debit card, except it gets reported to the credit agencies.

If you look under the secured credit cards portion of the "credit cards" tab above, you can browse which looks best for you. Orchard Banks seems to often be recommended by other users.

The purpose of having a card like this is simply to rebuild a good credit history - your on-time payments will be reported to the credit agencies just like any other credit card, etc.

After a couple of years, you may start seeing the opportunity to qualify for unsecured credit. This is what happened with me, but the banks were not as strict as they are today, so it might take longer now.

Good luck!

Being late twice - 3 years isn't that long ago to credit rating agencies - easily makes up a good portion of why your credit score is lower than what you want. Actually, it's still fairly high for having that on your record.

About the auto loans - they are not nearly as "boosting" to your score when they are paid off ... it's nice to have in your history, but it's not an active "installment loan"; you've completed your obligation.

If your AMEX Gold is your only credit card, and you're interested in raising your score specifically, you might want to add more cards to your portfolio, though I would advise to do it slowly, as you will decrease the average age of your accounts (especially if you don't have many). Having more accounts can boost your score to a minor degree, but having more open credit from those accounts has a larger positive effect.

Ultimately, on-time payment is one of THE most important parts of your credit score, so it's likely the "drag" here. It will naturally get better as more time passes.

I don't know the answer, but this sure is a good suggestion, so I just wanted to second it and add a star to the question!

If anyone from CK is reading this, a "Forum FAQ" would probably be helpful also, so we don't end up with so many of the "how do i get my score up fast" or "y is my score low" questions w/ no details. ;)

Great idea, Madlock!

Sorry I forgot to include the website with some excellent information on this:

http://www.bcsalliance.com/z_authorizedusers.html

Another good source:

http://www.mtgprofessor.com/A%20-%20Credit%20Issues/are_authorized_users_at_risk.htm

This states basically what I've said all along: creditors will try to make an authorized user liable and put it on your credit report, but the fact remains *100%* that an authorized user is NOT LEGALLY LIABLE FOR THE DEBT AND SHOULD NOT PAY IT.

No, actually, I am not, and I did more complete research to back up what I've said. As I stated, your credit can be damaged because authorized users are often INCORRECTLY reported to credit bureaus by collection agencies and credit card companies. Please read the link below for the thorough information that states how this happens and why you are NOT LEGALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR A DEBT if you are only an authorized user. Here is what you should do if you ARE seeing negative items about yourself on a credit report if you are only an authorized user:

Collection Efforts and the Authorized User

If a creditor or debt collector is pressuring you to pay a debt on a credit card when you were nothing but the authorized user, we recommend that you take the following steps.

"1. Do not agree to pay the debt or send in any partial payment on the debt no matter what they threaten to do. And remember, paying the debt will not improve or restore your credit rating.

2. Find out if you are indeed nothing more than an authorized user. In other words, make sure you are not really a joint accountholder, which would make you liable for 100% of the debt. You can do this by pulling your credit report. On the credit report you will find a single letter notation that designates you as a J - Joint accountholder or A - authorized user on the account in question.

3. If you are nothing more than an authorized user, send the creditor or collector a certified mail, return receipt requested letter denying liability for the debt on the grounds that you are only the authorized user and are not legally responsible for the debt. You can send along a copy of that portion of your credit report showing you as nothing more than the authorized user if you like. Your letter should also tell them to leave you alone, to stop calling you and that you will be reporting their attempt to collect a debt from you when you are not legally responsible for it to the Federal Trade Commission and the Attorney General's office of your state. If you know in what state the creditor or debt collector's company is based, you can also file a complaint with the Attorney General in that state for their deceptive trade practices.

It is important that you take the time to write the certified letter above because you want written proof that you dispute the debt and that the other party received notification that you dispute the debt. Legally, a creditor or collector is not supposed to add a collection account regarding the matter to your credit report if you dispute its validity within a timely manner. Write this letter as soon as possible."

This is why I always strongly recommend that people do their own research on the subject rather than relying on us here, just trying to help each other out. The laws can be tricky, and everyone has their personal stories. I guarantee you that I'm not an expert, but I have researched this pretty thoroughly.

Hope this helps you ... and definitely no offense intended, Madlock. At least you made me research it again. ;)

You are not making the distinction between "joint card holders" and "authorized users". If the person had to apply (provide income information, SSN, etc.), then they are a joint holder and their credit is as affected as the other individual. If they are simply an authorized user that the MAIN CARD HOLDER authorized, their credit cannot be affected. My own sister, unfortunately, ran up credit on one of my cards as an authorized user. While it helped send me to bankruptcy, not a thing showed up on her credit report. There is more information on this simply by searching the web.

Oh, and when I got it ... no annual fee (same today) - but this offer looks like it has one. :(

I just wanted to add a comment about this card, which was the first offered to me (and first that I accepted) after a bankruptcy filing in 2002. I first got the card in the 2004 time frame, and it was at a $500.00 limit. I was surprised I got anything. Surprisingly, the interest rate was not too bad given my circumstances, and today, it stands as my LOWEST interest-rate card.

The customer service has been excellent - I made a late payment one time (by a day or two) and the charge was removed. I had a false charge made on the card and they took care of it quite expeditiously.

I've received several balance transfer offers that were excellent deals and have used them to continue to pay down my credit card debt (which is all but gone now!).

Even today, they have not offered a very generous credit line - $1000 is where I'm still at, despite having other cards with much higher limits - but I'm very happy with this company and card, and I'm glad they were willing to take a chance on me.

My normal purchase rate is currently 10.23% and even the cash advance rate is a surprisingly low 15.23%, not that I used my credit cards for that.

This isn't the card for you if you need a big credit line. But if you're rebuilding, want decent interest rates, and decent balance transfer offers THROUGHOUT THE LENGTH OF YOUR CARD OWNERSHIP (not just the first 6 or 12 months), this very well could be the one for you.

Good luck!

CK queries and shows your score from TransUnion.

When you authorize CK to check your score through TransUnion, it is a "soft inquiry" (initiated) by you and does NOT impact your credit score whatsoever. If it has gone down "a lot", you should obtain a free copy of your free credit report (1 free report from each agency, once a year) from annualcreditreport.com and check to make sure that the information on all 3 reports is accurate. (Assuming, of course, you don't already know why your score is going down).

You should be able to find exactly what's caused your score to go down so that you can remedy that. If it's actions taken by you, rather than incorrect information, there is no "quick fix" - time will heal the mistakes you made as long as you are responsible with your credit.

No, this would not affect your credit score.

The only potential you could see is an extremely mild day-to-day change of a couple points here and there (maybe, but probably not even that much) as your total debt decreased on the day you queried.

Splitting your total monthly payment as you've outlined above will have no affect on your overall score though. Paying more than the minimum and paying off debt as quickly as possible certainly has more of an effect.

Good luck!

The math that calculates credit scores do not intend for you to be able to "raise your credit score fast" - it is intended to show a HISTORY of your credit and thus, changes occur rather slowly (at least going upward).

While this is true, probably the fastest way to increase your credit score is to qualify for an installment loan, pay more than the minimum and pay it off within a few months. This has one of the largest impacts on credit score in the shortest amounts of time.

Of course, if you have any bad debt, paying that off will be the single most important thing you can do to raise your credit score, but you've given absolutely no details, which makes it virtually impossible to give you a very accurate answer.

Generally speaking, there are no "quick fixes" to a credit score: they INTENTIONALLY go up slowly, not quickly.

I searched the net and this is some of the information I found from purportedly unbiased sources:

From http://creditreportrepair.org

NOTE: 2 out of 5 STARS

Refund policy: Full refund policy in you've been with them for one year and go through their evaluation process to determine if you have a refund coming. This is a bit confusing so you have to read the full requirements closely.

Pros: One of the lowest costs of all the credit repair companies.

Cons: Confusing refund policy.

Cost: $29 to start. Then $29 month thereafter.

**

They were given an overall 3 out of 5 stars on the more extensive site, http://creditrepairservices.choicerevu.com/

Though that did give them 2nd place to NCA Credit Repair, which received 5 out 5 stars.

There is one more unbiased review located here: http://cancreditrepairwork4me.com/ecreditattorney.php

The skinny of it seems to be this:

You get what you pay for - not the best, not the worst, but at least a legitimate operation, which certainly can't be said for all of the credit repair companies (or even a majority of them). I encourage you to also do some more of your own research, simply using google or some other search engine. Look at message boards for people who have used them (but NOT from the site itself) - these can often be very telling.

Good luck!

Any time you have a new account, it can have both negative and positive affects on your CURRENT credit score.

For example, you have shortened the average age of your accounts by opening a new card, so that portion of the math will cause your score to go down. This is not felt as strongly if you have many accounts that are older (so that the average is not dragged down as far).

However, you have also increased your available credit, so that portion will cause your score to go up.

You also are helping your score by increasing the TYPES of credit that you hold: such as credit cards, store "charge cards (like the one you just got), installment loans, etc.

Finally, when you were approved for the card, a hard inquiry was made on your credit report, which tends to (very slightly) decrease your score. The only time this has a dramatic effect is if you are applying all over the place for lots of different credit, as it can be construed as "desperation".

Ultimately, you may see a small decrease at first, followed eventually by a slowly increasing score, based just on the one new account.

I hope this is helpful. Good luck!

Look at your credit report card and you'll see that there are many factors (other than just debt to income ratio) that factor into your credit score.

For example, the # of accounts, the fact that you have always paid on time (this is a BIG one), how old your accounts are, etc.

I strongly recommend you review the blog on this site and your credit "report card" to see all of the factors that are affecting your score - without more detailed information about your situation, it is difficult to answer more specifically.

Good luck!

Probably not - you'll be reducing your available credit by doing so, which is probably a greater (negative) effect on your credit score than increasing the average age of your accounts is as a positive effect. The one exception is if you have to pay an annual fee - getting rid of such a fee may make it very much worth closing a new account, depending on your entire portfolio.

In general, if you don't want to use an account, it is recommended that you cut up the card, but NOT close the account. To maintain the best score, continue to use the account at least once every few months (ideally, once a month for something small) or the company may close it for you.

Good luck!

Though people rarely want to hear it, depending on your income and your assets, bankruptcy may be the best situation for you. If you have over $6,000 in assets you don't want to part with, bankruptcy may not be a good option.

Your other choice is consolidation - but without knowing your incomes and other particulars, it's impossible to tell which is best for you in the long run. If you can afford to consolidate, this will have a much less negative effect on your credit report, and you can often get creditors to reduce either interest rates or total debt when you agree to a payment plan - especially if you use direct debits from a bank account (though I would stay away from "professional consolidation services" which often charge you for what you could do yourself and - to me - are often more like a scam).

Research Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcies as well as debt consolidation, and see what fits you best.

Good luck!

FWIW, in 2002, I had @78,000 in debt (medical, CC, and other) - I filed Chapter 13 and though it remains on my record for another year and a half, I have built my credit over 700 again by being responsible ever since. The bankruptcy was a great relief to me, but I had no assets to speak of at the time, so it made sense for me.