jairocon said:Wow, that was boring and took forever...

Heh, yeah.

Incidentally, my RBS online apps also blew up on me, I just called up and ordered in person.

If you get the bofa card I would suggest calling and asking for a credit limit increase right away. I did this (around the end of march) and they used the same credit report they pulled for my application since it had been less than 30 days. I was able to get an additional 5k on a card issued with a 13k limit.

Good luck with your AOR.

Well, looks like EQF is dinged the hardest. This fits my experience.

Thanks for sharing, I wouldn't have expected, but I just got some nice details from your AOR.

DynaConv said:If you get the bofa card I would suggest calling and asking for a credit limit increase right away. I did this (around the end of march) and they used the same credit report they pulled for my application since it had been less than 30 days. I was able to get an additional 5k on a card issued with a 13k limit.

Thanks for a good tip. I will probably try. Last year when I got a preapproved offer from bofa, it was for 15k and no fee 0% BT for 15 months. I should have taken it, but I didn't. We'll see if the card really comes with only 7.5k or if they give me higher CL.

Btw, just before I headed to bed, I applied and opened BofA checking account as well. They're giving $50 bonus for opening the account, so I went for it. Funny thing is, that when I finished the aor, I was completely tired and just wanted to forget about it. 2 hours later, I was checking my credit reports, scores and was just about ready to hit a few more applications.

So, in the future - I will definitely get an early morning start with the applications. I'm sure I could have opened a few more credit and bank accounts and in retrospect, I should have pushed both discover and ATT Universal for a CLI, but was too tired to think through it. At the same time, I think I sold myself little bit short, with the BTs that I asked for, I should have asked for more money. And I also applied for the wrong penfed card - I didn't take the rewards card, but the no fee variable apr card. I guess in my future aor, I have another penfed card to ask for.

penumbra222 said:You have put up a really nice thread on your App-O-Rama. I apologize for taking up your time, but could you tell me how you went about signing up for PenFed? I have unsuccessfully searched for the info & didn't dare post the question in your thread with the way people get abused sometimes.

When you go to PenFed website and check if you qualify for membership - keep answering their questions and the last question is whether you want to join the National Military Family Association (NMFA). Membership is $20 for the first year. Being NMFA member qualifies you for PenFed. Once you're a PenFed member, you don't have to renew the NMFA membership (although it qualifies you for geico discounts as well). When applying for penfed, the application for NMFA is a part of this process, so you do both in one step.

humangenomics said:jairocon, are you able to order new credit report/credit scores from pm123/Truecredit after the first order? I also signed up pm123 yesterday, but it always gives me the report/score i pulled from the first order. thanks.

I haven't tried yet today. I read that it will allow you a new pull every 24 hours 01 minutes. Since I pulled mine about 16 hours ago, I will wait and let you know probably tomorrow.

---
I have already gotten a new alert from them.
TransUnion: New Inquiry 05/15/2006 BAC CON LDG
I'm not sure which bank/card could this be.
---
Just checked my old AMEX personal card, where I asked for CLI:
$500-->$5,000 approved, business CL stayed untouched.
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Worrying development - chase online access restricted to the 3 cards that got the CLIs. It says: "Your accounts are no longer available Online. Please contact Customer Service by clicking the Contact Us link at the top of the page to find a list of helpful numbers to call for assistance regarding Error Message MCA01A." I'll call later in the evening, but it's weird. Also yesterday, chase kept constantly asking me security questions whenever I called.

OP, your detailed followup, complete with details about what you'd learned and would do differently, is making this one of the best AOR threads available at FWF. Kudos! A few points:

-You can call Penfed and ask them to switch the application to the rewards card. They will not run a new credit report or give you any static about this. The sooner, the better though, so as to avoid their needing to report a new card number to the CRAs.

-The following is my best guess only...I could be wrong, and YMMV. I would jump right on that Chase hold by calling them during business hours. They are likely concerned (understandably) that you are a victim of identity theft. Simply explain to their security department that yes, those cards are yours, and that you applied for "a handful" of cards at once yesterday when you had a free afternoon. (Note that their credit analysts might not be excited about your doing an AOR, because that can be correlated with desperate borrowers. However, the security department (who no doubt put on the hold) doesn't really care about that, they just want to know that someone isn't trying to use your accounts to rip them off.)

Please keep us posted.

jairocon said:
---
I have already gotten a new alert from them.
TransUnion: New Inquiry 05/15/2006 BAC CON LDG
I'm not sure which bank/card could this be.


Bank Of America I doo belive.

decades said:What is so good about getting the pennfed card ? Aren't the 0% apr cards better than 4.99% pennfed card

Huge benefit of the penfed card:
# No Cash Advance Fee
# No Balance Transfer Fee

That means, you can draw out money from this card for a few days and only pay a few days of interest (which is pocket change) and use the newly created balance to act as your target account for BTs from other credit cards. Remember, overpaying a credit card is a no-no with most credit card companies. Sending a BT to a card that has enough negative balance, in order to pay it off, that's how a legitimate BT should work. So penfed, will help to make the BT legitimate at a minimal cost to you. (This is in theory, I haven't done this yet).

DaveHanson said:Glad to hear that the Chase incident was nothing, OP. IME it ALWAYS pays to call in in matters like this, It isn't like a "hot deal" where you'll kill it by calling...and its the fraudsters who never call. I've talked myself out of more than one situation CC issuers were wary of just by being up front and non-defensive with them.

Sorry on the Penfed verification requirement. I haven't figured out when they do and don't do that yet. We never had to verify financials, but this was a year or two ago. Good luck with that.

jairocon said:Huge benefit of the penfed card:
# No Cash Advance Fee
# No Balance Transfer Fee

That means, you can draw out money from this card for a few days and only pay a few days of interest (which is pocket change) and use the newly created balance to act as your target account for BTs from other credit cards. Remember, overpaying a credit card is a no-no with most credit card companies. Sending a BT to a card that has enough negative balance, in order to pay it off, that's how a legitimate BT should work. So penfed, will help to make the BT legitimate at a minimal cost to you. (This is in theory, I haven't done this yet).I have done it several times, and it works exactly as you describe.

Can you use the PenFed 4.99% for life with a high interest loan instead of just credit cards? I want to transfer some private student loan debt over which is currently at 8.75%. This would save me tons in interest if they accept it. Anyone with this experience? Do they send you balance transfer checks to use?

Thanks

Ryan

jairocon said:Right now the FAKO scores seem to be:
transunion 765
experian 778
equifax 746
(Didn't check these before the applications). True myfico (based on equifax) was 785 on Friday.

Pulled my credit report again.

FAKO scores:
transunion 763
experian 779
equifax 743

FNB OMAHA 05/16/2006 Equifax
HSBC NV 05/15/2006 Experian
PENTAGON 05/15/2006 Equifax
ADVANTA 05/15/2006 Equifax
DISCOVER 05/15/2006 Equifax
FIRST USA 05/15/2006 Equifax
CITI 05/15/2006 Equifax
CITI 05/15/2006 Equifax
FUSA, NA 05/15/2006 Equifax
BAC CON LDG 05/15/2006 TransUnion
GMAC BANK 05/15/2006 TransUnion
WASHMTL/PROV 05/15/2006 TransUnion

Interesting, that there are so few pulls, I did expect more, then again I wasn't too wild during the aor. I don't see MBNA pull, even though when I was requesting the CLI the credit analyst checked my credit report while I was on the phone with him. I don't see AMEX pull, although CLI was granted. My last AMEX pull was on 4/4, which is more than 30 days ago, but it is possible, that they're still using that report. As Dave mentioned, some pulls will spill over to the following days, since I did the aor in the afternoon-evening on a busy Monday. We can see that's true as First National checked one day later. I wonder if I'll get more chase pulls (1 phone application, 1 online application and 4 phone CLI requests). If there are no more chase pulls, then the theory of asking for a CLI at the same time when asking for a new loc from the same lender is really really worth it.

No new credit lines are yet reported though. I wonder how long it takes for the new lines to report. Too bad this 3-in-1 credit pull trial expires so quickly, it would have been quite interesting to observe the timeline.

The distribution of the credit pulls is also interesting - heavily favoring equifax:

Number of pulls:
equifax: 8
transunion: 3
experian: 1

I guess I could have researched more in advance as to which cards would pull which CRAs, but I don't think I could have managed to distribute the new applications so that it would have been more even. However, since experian was pulled only once, perhaps I could still find some new card(s) to apply for, one that would for sure pull experian. I'll look into that today.