bad credit - credit cards?

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ubaidabcd

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I have bad credit from when I was younger, maxed out credit cards and a repo. I haven't put anything bad on my credit for about 8 years. I've completely changed, and pay off all my bills on time. If I was to get a credit card again I would use it wisely and pay everything off just to build my credit.

I deal with PPC quite a bit and really want to be able to get a credit card to build my credit. I just can't find any companies that will approve, will any of them approve me? I think I've applied to a few places a couple years ago but never got approved. They all say, "guaranteed approval" but it's not, I keep getting declined.

Anybody know of any credit cards that might approve me? If it makes a difference as to how far in debt I am, I'd guess $8K on the car about $3K on the credit card. I haven't made a payment on any of this in 8 years. Is the only way to get a credit card to pay this off first?


Thanks
 


I'm in the same boat. I've been able to boost my score by about 150 points or so in the last year, so here's a rundown of what I did.

Start monitoring your credit. I use truecredit.com. It's cheap and works pretty well. Learn what influences your credit report so you know what to work on.

If it has been that long since you made a payment, I assume that the lender has written off the debt some time ago. That being the case, you can usually have those debts wiped off your credit report after 7 years. Do NOT make a payment or set up a payment plan with them if you are going to try and do that. It's funny, but if you make a payment, it counts as activity on the debt and you'd have to wait another 7 years to get it wiped off.

Stop applying for cards. Having all of those inquiries will kill your score. Remember that you can dispute anything. Dispute every bit of bad information, even if it's legit. The company has 30 days to respond to a verification request, if they don't, it gets wiped from your credit report. Dispute late payments (if there are only a few) dispute whole lines, inquires, anything that lowers your score.

I will say that if you wipe a line of credit off of your report that it could go down at first, because part of the metric that they use is length of time that credit has been established. I woulnd't worry about it though. In my experiences, starting off with a clean, or at least cleaner slate, even with a slightly lower score, is easier to build on.

As for credit cards, the thing about getting bad credit credit cards is that they have high annual fees, setup fees, and stupid interest rates. Also, there is a difference between the way a lender looks at a CC from a shitty predatory lender like First Premier Bank vs. a credit card from AMEX, Wells Fargo, Citi or any reputable bank.

Now, obviously you aren't going to qualify for a card at one of these places. But you can get a secured line. I got one at Wells Fargo for a couple grand when I started. Even if you take a couple hundred bucks and use it to open a secured line, the long term results will be better for your score. Another thing you can do if you have a little extra cash is to deposit the money into a CD, take out a loan using the CD as collateral, and make a few payments on it then pay it off. You can do all of this with not much money.

Just realize that it's gonna take some time. In any case, stay away from shitty CC companies. You'll regret it if you don't. That's my 2 cents anyway.
 
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im a Financial Case Manager in the UK dealing with mortgages, insurance, loans e.t.c so im not sure if it will be relevant for the US but ill try my best to help you.
The more you apply for credit the more it affects you as each time you apply the company or organisation conduct a credit serach which leaves a foot print on your credit file and it can affect your credit rating, the best thing to do is get access to your credit file if you can here in the UK its called an experian or equifax report which will cost you between nothing to $10, then this should bring up your score and what finance you have outstanding and conduct of each account. Print that file off if you can, then before applying for credit find out the criteria of the lender or organisation and what basis they will accept an applicant for example there might be a minimum score you have to have or what income your earning, Some lenders are really picky as they will require you to be earning at least 20k, be on the voters roll, had no bad credit, missed payments e.t.c (here in the UK your credit file gets wiped every 6 years but im unsure for US, it will be beneficial if you could find that out to).

Get in touch with banks and organisations and find out there criteria before you apply then once you have found ones that you know will accept then apply to them, if you need any more info get in touch.
 
A resource I've found invaluable for this and biz credit is creditboards.com - great forum with invaluable info.

good luck
 
do you have a relationship with your bank? if not, you should try to establish yourself with a business banker. I would talk to the bank, explain your situation and they should be able to at least set you up with a credit card w/ low limit. that won't give you much spending power for ppc but at least you can start building credit. a credit union may also be a good choice.
 
Thanks for all the advice. As for applying for a credit card, I really can't remember the last time. I do recall trying once or twice at some time, I never applied consitently hoping to get approved. I knew I wasn't going to get approved, just took a chance. I didnt know that it would effect my credit just for applying until some time after that when I completely stopped applying.

I'll speak to my bank I have a good relationship with them, I've been making with them regularly for 6 years.

So as for disputing the bad credit, you can dispute even if it's legit? I always thought that you can only dispute if it wasn't legit. So I should get Equifax and just try to dispute it off my record? Do they ask why you're disputing?

It sounds like I shouldn't get a bad credit credit card so I'll try to see if I can dispute the charges. The credit company that originally lend me the loan on the car closed and another company picked them up, or maybe they changed their name, but whatever happened maybe I have a chance they might not be able to get a hold of the right people. I doubt it, but worth a try I guess.
 
yeah you can dispute legit info. I had a couple charge off accounts wiped off my reports that gave me an instant boost.

you do have to give a reason why you are disputing. I've said that accouts were opened fradulently, disputing that I had made payments on time, disputing that I even signed up in the first place, whatever. be creative.

if the loan has been passed around, your chances are better. don't get me wrong, I'm not telling you it will work, but it has worked, and it worked for me.

I have some letters that I used successfully for disputes. If you want them, pm me and I'll dig around and send them to you.
 
Use secured credit cards. The ones where they charge you 150 for 200 of a credit or whatever and build from there. Of course you need to get all the bad crap off too but you can start building it while your working on removing it.
 
In real life I am a loan officer. You are getting a mix of questionable info.

Get a secured credit card. usually you can get them by putting up a deposit as low as $300. They give you a card with a $300 limit. You can raise the limit by depositing more. It doesn't matter who gives it to you. Credit scoring is done by a computer program.

You're optimal number of cards is 3-5. Your best rating comes after they are 2 years old. They also look at the precentage of debt vs the overall credit line. If you have it fully charged up it will hurt your credit scores. Why? Because people charge up their cards before going under because they don't have the money to keep them paid down. Keep the running balance at less than 30% of the total line if you can. Make sure you pay your payments on time and use the car even if its only for gasoline.

After your credit scores starts to go up, you can apply for better interest rate cards with no deposit. Then close out your secured cards to get your money back.

this process will take a couple years. Your credit scores don't move quickly.

there is one way to get your score up quickly. That's to have someone with good credit (mom and dad) to put you on one of their cards. You can then claim that you have had a credit card for the same length of time as the card has been open. You can boost your scores over a hundred points this way. If you can't put it on mom and dads' card, google "seasoned credit lines".
 
I used to be in the same boat, now my credit rocks! and I get credit card apps all the time in the mail.

Here is what I did.

1. signed up with truecredit.com
2. disputed every negetive piece of crap (there are good letters on the credit boards online you can use)
3. send your letters via registered mail, as soon as you get confirmation, dispute the items with the credit reporting agencies. If the creditor tells them it is valid before they send you a valid letter verifying your debt, you can ding them for $1000 for each agency they reported you too. It is a violation of the Fair Credit Reporting act.
4. You can get them on multiple infractions, debt collectors are scum and cut corners.
5. I waited until I had them on $5000 worth of infractions, then sent another letter telling them I am taking them to small claims court (It is called "Intent to sue letter if you are searching for the templates).

They all folded, they generally do not put up a big fight if you do your research and know your rights. If they still try to screw you, take them to small claims (my understanding is that most counties have a $5k max you can seek). I read many ppl making extra money from these chumps, you can fight it out or let them settle for $1200 which seems to be some sort of magic number they will offer after many offers before going to court.

6. Apply for low credit store cards (I did target)
7. Check your credit report, when the negetives start dropping, your score will go up.
8. Check for inquiries (you will see some if you applied for credit anyware)
9. Dispute all inquiries with the reporting agencies (even if you authorized a credit check), the inquiries do affect your score, sometimes small, sometimes big.

Sorry this is so long, but I did not want to leave anything out.
 
Thanks for all the info!

My only question is, how can you dispute a repo? It was messed up what happened with the car, I was actually getting some body work repaired since I couldn't afford the car anymore and was going to sell it. Well, it was a shady body shop that put used parts on the car and painted over it. The insurance company found out and wouldn't approve the claim and the body shop wanted $2-$3K for the repairs, and since I didn't have it they put a Lien on the car and eventually it got repoed.





tempest said:
I used to be in the same boat, now my credit rocks! and I get credit card apps all the time in the mail.

Here is what I did.

1. signed up with truecredit.com
2. disputed every negetive piece of crap (there are good letters on the credit boards online you can use)
3. send your letters via registered mail, as soon as you get confirmation, dispute the items with the credit reporting agencies. If the creditor tells them it is valid before they send you a valid letter verifying your debt, you can ding them for $1000 for each agency they reported you too. It is a violation of the Fair Credit Reporting act.
4. You can get them on multiple infractions, debt collectors are scum and cut corners.
5. I waited until I had them on $5000 worth of infractions, then sent another letter telling them I am taking them to small claims court (It is called "Intent to sue letter if you are searching for the templates).

They all folded, they generally do not put up a big fight if you do your research and know your rights. If they still try to screw you, take them to small claims (my understanding is that most counties have a $5k max you can seek). I read many ppl making extra money from these chumps, you can fight it out or let them settle for $1200 which seems to be some sort of magic number they will offer after many offers before going to court.

6. Apply for low credit store cards (I did target)
7. Check your credit report, when the negetives start dropping, your score will go up.
8. Check for inquiries (you will see some if you applied for credit anyware)
9. Dispute all inquiries with the reporting agencies (even if you authorized a credit check), the inquiries do affect your score, sometimes small, sometimes big.

Sorry this is so long, but I did not want to leave anything out.
Click to expand...
 
dispute repo

first get your credit reports from the big 3 agencies.

I used truecredit.

send a debt verification letter to whoever owns you debt on the repo via registered mail.

when they get it. send dispute letters to each agency they report to.

chances are good they will verify your debt with they agencies before they do with you. this is a violation and can cost them 1k per agency they reported to.

you can use that as leverage. it will be cheaper to drop the negetive item then to go to small claims court.

whalaa, your credit score just took a hella big positive jump.
 
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