Update: Equifax, 640 to 638, 0 inquiries in the past 6 months (decreased), all cards reporting correctly
TransUnion, 635 to 646, 7 inquiries in the past 6 months (decreased), all cards reporting correctly
Experian: 638 to 628, 5 inquiries in the past 6 months (decreased), all cards reporting correctly

The only thing I can see effecting Equifax and Experian's score drop is Chase transferring $500 from my Sony to my Amazon, I have no new inquiries. Everything but my Sony and Amazon report $0, Amazon usage on all of them report below 25% usage, Chase must have updated right after I paid that month.

Update: I was looking at the wrong reports for the inquries. The updated ones are reflected above.

Update: I'm pushing this to November. I'm now employing b*, and will go when my EQ and TU reports are clear of hard inquiries.

And if you would have actually read the thread, it really is the inquiries dropping the score. There is nothing else besides the age of the cards and the age of the total report, and those cannot be changed except by simply waiting.

markkundinger said:

So... are there any negative items on any of your credit reports? Missed payments? Public records? "Closed by grantor" comments? Anything?

exactly what I was thinking. there's got to be other negatives dropping the score.

Diablo, just do whatever you want to do,

good call on redding my advice, you've got nothing to fix man, it's definitely just the few inquiries keeping you from the 25k limits.

it's probably not your missed payments, public records, closed by grantor or the 1 year history that's giving you the 1k limits.

just go ahead and app it.

AHH! You thought HH meant Hilton.. no, its a Household Bank. Correcting OP post now.

I'm actually ahead of you on that. I'm already at the maximum usage Chase will give me, CapOne you can't ask (I'm not using the card and trying to starve them out), WaMu isn''t old enough to get a CLI on, HSBC cards are known for their tiny limits and I can't use the starve technique against them (sockdrawering cards just causes them to cancel them).

And yeah, I'm trying to set myself up for a 'real' AOR later as my second AOR, this one is only for sign up bonuses when available, and trying to get lines with issuers I don't have lines with yet. Juniper has denied me (tried to get an Apple card), AMEX has denied me two or three times, and Citi recently denied me (thus one additional hard inq I should add to my numbers).

There is one additional factor that you're not discussing: my Chase Sony which is at $1100 of $1500. Paying this off entirely should boost my score maybe 20 points (my CapOne, Household, and WaMu balance this card out to bring my total usage under 50%), but I'd rather not do this except as a last resort, as the money is happily sitting in a savings account and should stay there as long as possible.

There is a myth that states many issuers will dislike you until your history is 2 years old: FWF says this is false, but sometimes I do wonder. I may end up pushing my AOR launch date until mid-next year as you suggested just to avoid this bias, but I want to start as soon as possible.

Also, I have said 'f-that' and tried to entice Citi as I mentioned two paragraphs up, and yeah, they said no. Everyone else I've tried ~6 months ago.

Also, another thing I haven't disclosed, over the past 2 years, I have 18 hard inqs. on TU, and the vast majority of hard inqs I have are on TU. Some of these predate me trying to get credit originally (which, as much as everyone hates CapOne, they were my first issuer allowing me to get my foot in the door with everyone else), so my recent usage of b*ing should eliminate those in the next 3-4 months.

FWF may scoff at 18, but my credit score simply wouldn't matter if no one would have given me credit in the first place, yadda yadda yadda, etc etc etc.

Worse case, I may have to Zen Master it, although I don't like to. I'm trying to start up a business at some point, and one of the reasons I poked Citi was in an attempt to get a card just for that (and to 0% BT whats left on the Chase Sony in May), but, yeah, they said no.

Now, I have tried one thing recently, as a second to last resort: I used PlanetFeedback and said that I wish to become a Citi customer, but I am constantly denied (truth: most of my TU inqs are Citi, and I mentioned this as well), and my credit history is clean and clear and I've never been late, and I was polite as well. I sent that two weeks ago, and there was no response. Oh well, it was worth a try.

FWF is full of good advice, but except for the few issuers I already have, I may just to have to wait my problem out.

You know, I think you probably need to introduce a little Zen Master into things, regardless of what tactic you take. It seems a little bit like you've been bashing your head against a brick wall trying to get new credit. There's really very little point in trying to force results. Sometimes you just need to let it go, rather than just sending citibank a stream of applications like a lovesick teenager.

So, if you decide you don't really want to chase credit, then great, don't. If you decide you want to fire off a stream of apps, then go for it, but then you've got to accept the results (whatever they are) and wait until conditions improve for the next app spree.

markkundinger said:You know, I think you probably need to introduce a little Zen Master into things, regardless of what tactic you take. It seems a little bit like you've been bashing your head against a brick wall trying to get new credit.

This is what I'm saying. i can only wait.

Update:
TU: 639, from 650, 12 inqs in the past 6 months, 15 in the past 2 years * Recent Citi applications screwed my TU score over
EQ: 656, from 649, 0 inqs in the past 6 months, 5 in the past 2 years
EX: 633, from 629, 5 inqs in the past 6 months, 9 in the past 2 years

I predict that even after you bump off all your inquiries, your scores will all still be sub 700, most likely around 670s at highest. I know you state that your scores are only due to inquiries...well I guess we will find out when you bump all of them off from TU and EQ. You know it doesn't hurt to call up the credit reporting companies and ask why the score is so low. If they say inquires and only inquires, then fine, but I am almost positive they will bring out another issue or two. It will only help your chances of having a better AOR, but if you want to live in denial, then that's up to you.