I am compiling the list of cards worth applying for in my AOR 3.0. This time I'd like to concentrate on business credit and on new issuers [to me].
Personal Credit Summary HHI: 190K projected/168K on last income tax return. My oldest credit card is 11 years old. PM123 FAKOs: TU 778 (no inqs), EQ 774 (1 inq), EX not monitored due to a freeze, but should be about 100 points lower (15 inqs in the past 12 months). Everyone wants to pull EX, go figure
Personal Credit I have 364K in personal credit (not including AU accounts on the report), mainly from AMEX and BofA, but also Citi, Chase, HSBC, Discover and a local credit union gave me CLs of 25K or more. Of that, only a few cards report balances: 20K on a 25.5K Chase Sony (0% until 2/4/08), 8K on a 24K Discover (0% for life) and 4.3K on 5K PNC card (0% until 1/31/08, still not reported to TU). With the daily spending etc, I have about 29K showing on TU and 33K on EX/EQ. Close to 60K is hidden thanks to BofA bill pay, and another 25K thanks to another issuer (that shall remain unnamed) offering no fee purchase checks with grace period. Occasionally I let them report these balances and use the grace period, only to pay it off next month.
Business Credit I have a one year old business credit report from EQ, showing AMEX Biz, Cap1 Biz and Advanta Biz reporting (but not PNC Biz, then issued by ELAN). My only other biz card is from BofA (which I did not have back then). Currently I have 30K at 0% on that BofA card, 9K at 0% with Advanta and 6.5K at 0% with PNC. I also have a current EXP business credit report, showing that my company is in the system for a year, but no credit lines ever reported. I am still waiting for my D-U-N-S number, but I am not hoping for an 80 paydex score any time soon (so far, Staples is my only business card supposedly reporting).
Experian Security Freeze I applied for AMEX Biz Gold card, but my app was not processed because of the freeze. I called the credit dept and asked to pull another CRA, but they would not. I am wondering if I should proceed with AOR with EX frozen and try to convince all issuers to pull TU/EQ. I have nothing to loose if they refuse, other than opportunity. Alternatively, I can see who attempted to pull EX and send them my auth code in the order of my choice and only if I want to.
Strategies I am also seriously considering Biz AOR first, massive b*, then personal AOR. However, I am already banned by TrueCredit (which really sucks because now I cannot dispute TU report online). I still have PM123 and NCIP, which I try not to "abuse". I do not remember if KeyBank's version is any different from NCIP (for b* purposes). I cannot enroll in CreditSecure until I remove EX freeze, at least temporarily (according to CSR).
I am also tempted to move as much credit as I can from personal to biz at Citi and Chase (even though there is no going back). Both places seem to cap total exposure anyhow, and I should be able to regain personal credit just after a few applications.
Juniper is one nervous bank: they've lowered CL and then closed my Frontier and US Airways cards so many times that I did not bother asking them to re-open when it happened last time. Chase lowered my CL once about 2 years ago. Otherwise, I was pretty lucky in terms of adverse action. I am considering re-applying for Juniper cards for bonus and BT anyway.
The Cards
Status codes: A[:CL]=Approved, D=Declined, C=Cancelled (without pulling CR), ?=Pending/Unknown
History
November 2005 AOR http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/arcmessageview.php?catid=52&threadid=541760
December 2006 AOR http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/arcmessageview.php?catid=52&threadid=688456
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10/30: Applied for Citi Biz - deferred, Chase/United Airlines Biz - deferred (Chase will pull EQ according to CSR)
11/01: Approved for Citi Biz - 15K (EQ), Chase/UA Biz - 13K (TU)
11/01: Applied for *** FCU Biz jointly with my wife (that was the only way to have them consider HHI)
11/07: Received and activated Chase/UA Biz, then called Biz Lending Ops and had the CL increased to 25K
11/07: Applied for Discover Biz and requested 35K BT with application - deferred, Chase Biz - deferred
11/08: Approved for Discover Biz - 7.5K (reallocated 14K from personal), Chase Biz - 10K
11/12: Applied for BankAtlantic Biz - deferred, FNBO Biz - deferred, Citi Biz PP - deferred;
GEMB (personal) - deferred, BofA US Airways (personal) - declined (tried to pull EXP),
WAMU (personal) - declined, WAMU Biz - declined, Juniper/Lufthansa (personal) - deferred,
National City (personal) - deferred, Principal Bank (personal) - deferred, RBS (personal) - deferred,
Juniper/National Parks - declined
11/13: Approved for BankAtlantic Biz - 10K, Juniper/Lufthansa (personal) - 5K, GEMB (personal) - declined: "AMOUNT
OWED ON ACCOUNTS IS TOO HIGH" (pulled EQ)
11/13: Applied for US Bank card (phone app - CSR found the offer I mentioned), requested CLI on Citi Biz
11/14: Approved for National City - 10K, CitiBiz PP - 4K, *** FCU Biz - 25K, personal CLI with them denied due to
"total exposure limits", RBS - denied (pulled EQ), US Bank denied ("out of service area", no pull)
11/15: Approved for FNBO Biz - 12K, Juniper/National Parks card (previously rejected) - 5K, and got CLI on
Juniper/Lufthansa card - now 20K
11/15: Applied for Citi/AA Biz - deferred, FNBO/BucksBack - deferred, Discover/Miles - deferred,
KeyBank/Rewards - deferred, Wachovia personal and biz (at a branch) - ?
11/16: Declined for FNBO (personal), approved for AM_EX Biz Gold Rewards (and so is my wife)
11/16: Got 0% for 18 months BT offer from an existing Cap1 Biz account, 2% fee uncapped
11/19: Approved for CitiBiz/AA - 25K, declined for CLI on CitiBiz after providing docs due to max exposure,
declined for Wachovia (personal), approved for Wachovia Biz, but promo BT offer is not on the account
11/19: All of my and my wife's BofA cards are closed...
11/20: Declined for Key Bank (personal), Discover Miles (personal), Chase/GM Biz and Chevy Chase Biz;
Discover Biz CL increased to 21.5K
Message edited by: EugeneV on 2007-11-20 17:03:08 CST
It is highly unlikely that the inquires are lowering your EX credit report a full 100 points. 50 at max. It's ONLY 15 inquiries, I've done an AOR with more of them.
However, it would be interesting to see what happens if you did an AOR with the freeze. Sounds like AMX would be out of the picture, but who knows about the other banks? There's a chance the creditboards group might know more about this, since they seem more likely to freeze certain CRAs.
So, in conclusion, keeping the freeze in place and doing an AOR may or may not be the best play for you, but it's definitely best for us, so we can find out what happens
I would not, personally, recommend a business-bumpage-personal AOR. Why? Time. You're probably looking at at least a couple months of bumpage for that to kick in. Plus, if you wanted to reallocate personal lines to busines... well, you're already exhausted your BT deals on those cards, so it wouldn't do you any immediate good.
Small update: it appears that TrueCredit can show your Experian report even if Experian has a freeze (just signed up my wife). PM123 cannot. CreditSecure does not even allow you to sign up. It is useless for b*, but it is nice to be able to see it... I wish I could access mine.
markkundinger said:I would not, personally, recommend a business-bumpage-personal AOR. Why? Time. You're probably looking at at least a couple months of bumpage for that to kick in. Plus, if you wanted to reallocate personal lines to busines... well, you're already exhausted your BT deals on those cards, so it wouldn't do you any immediate good.
one nit pick...
it takes about 120 pulls for EQ bumpage. so, if you have 4 bumpage services, you can bump off an A0R in about a month. i did it this for my most recent A0R.
that being said, i don't think the biz-bump-personal strategy is really worth the hassle.
EugeneV said: Experian Security Freeze I applied for AMEX Biz Gold card, but my app was not processed because of the freeze. I called the credit dept and asked to pull another CRA, but they would not. I am wondering if I should proceed with AOR with EX frozen and try to convince all issuers to pull TU/EQ. I have nothing to loose if they refuse, other than opportunity. Alternatively, I can see who attempted to pull TU and send them my auth code in the order of my choice and only if I want to.
Just to unconfuse me, did you mean to say "see who attempted to pull EX" and allow selected few ?
I've been salivating over an AOR with EX freeze (using the same logic as you do -- not much to lose except time, opportunity, and, depending on state, some money to unfreeze/freeze EX again), but have not yet convinced myself to try. So, I'll join Mark in that it would be awesome to see what comes out of your exercise.
Another small update: re-allocated 79K from Biz AMEX to personal to help with utilization. I hope my reports will reflect this soon.
cyberkost said:Just to unconfuse me, did you mean to say "see who attempted to pull EX" and allow selected few?
Whoever will attempt to pull EX and will not automatically re-try another CRA or pull a soft, will send me a letter asking for an auth code. I can then get back only to the ones worth a pull, in the order of my preference.
win333 said:So 3 softs per day on TU and 4 on EQ, plus myFICO and Equifax.com to get ride of pulls QUICKLY.
By Equifax.com you mean, online dispute? And what about myFICO, do they offer daily pulls?
win333 said:If your EXP is frozen keep trying to sign up for CS because your still getting softs unless maybe EXP is the first pull and then it fails (thats possable).
I called CSR and was told that I cannot sign up if they cannot pull EXP successfully at that time. I was also told that I will not see ANY reports if EXP pull fails after I sign up (if I re-activate the freeze), but I am not sure it is to be believed. I should be able to pull all three once I sign up (without the 30 day trial) as a returning member.
my 4 pronged attack consisted of CreditSecure, NatCity IP, Chase, and TrueCredit. i think there is a post by ChumChum outlining which services creates unique softs. These 4 definitely create unique softs. Not sure about Privacy Matters and Key, because they're both DealPass (like NatCity IP).
win333 said:I buy additional myFICO's and Equifax.com single reports (costs a little)
just keep signing up everyday for CS
I signed up everyday for 3 weeks before they finally got it. They won't charge you 100 times. The CSR's really have no clue it just a bug, it won't cost you nothing to try.
Sign up for CS even if it fails, then buy and EQ from Equifax.com to see the softs and you'll know for sure NOT by what the CSR says.
Just remember this is SOFTWARE, (((( do this 1st, then this 2nd then this 3rd))))))
when you sign up it pulls 1 CRA, then the 2nd CRA and in my case the 3rd was TU (no TU = FAIL) but the 2 softs have already been done. They can't undo them. They just won't let you see the report...
Think MATRIX it's all built on a system
What do you mean with "before they finally got it"? Can you give a little more detail, please?
As I am selecting the cards for this AOR, I am realizing that it's tough to find "new" issuers with decent offers... There is really not that much out there. I will leave our AMEX lines alone, as we'd probably loose them if I attempted to use them (I may use them for a biz "life of balance" offer one day).
I'll throw in a bunch of co-branded airline cards for bonus miles, but will not follow up on my apps if those issuers will insist on pulling Experian.
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