I used the nbc promo today to get a copy and score from TU today.

This post is from that thread:

I was surprised to see my TU FICO at 688 already.

I started my mission to 720 on October 1st and thought it would take at least a year. I need a new car and I can get a 0% for 72 here with a 720.

That is better then paying cash!

I am only 32 points away :)

I have no derogs to dispute on my TU so all of this gain has come from paying down utilization and combining my 2 MBNA cards.

Oh, and sh!t canning that lousy Providian card.

Thanks creditnet. Getting down to 30% UT has done wonders for my score.

I am going to pretend 30% of the CL is my CL.

__________________
-------------------------------
18 points to 740 & 0% Auto
-------------------------------

With defaulted student loans, a charged-off credit card, a repo and several other derogs I was soooo overwhelmed when I found CN a few months ago. To date, my PG (EQ) FAKO has only gone from 535 to 557 (got all the way down to 495 a couple of months ago for some reason). But I think the most exciting part of my journey is that I've gone from 21 accounts (9 pos, 12 neg) to 15 accounts (12 pos, 3 neg) on Equifax. I'm concentrating most on EQ first, then apply for credit and let it age while I work on TU and EXP a little harder. The repo's gone, the charge-off corresponding to that repo is gone. All of my student loans are positive, all collections are gone. There are three small CO's left, but the collections for those COs are gone.

Well since finding this board,my hubbies report has gone from the low 500's with about 15 derog's to 1 derog and tons of good, solid credit now.This is all because of the board and the great advice from it. Hubbie thinks it is great that he is getting prime cards now with good interest rates.The history is perfect since march of 2002 and no new baddies can pop up since everything is paid right on time!

His scores are mid 600's right now because of the new credit cards, but his points should bounce back soon from that. My goal is to see at least a 750 on each report by June of 2004.
(i know,I have high hopes,right....lol)

Thanks to you guys of course!

PS-another thing good about this is since i am an au on his cards,my score is going up with his.:)

__________________
Hubbie Scores

• EQ:672
• EX:681
• TU:650

Oh yeah, I should also mention that the information I've taken from this board has been phenominal in turning my DWs good, flawless credit into GREAT flawless credit. I never would have known the difference between her old Providian with 29.99 APR and no grace period or CLIs and her NEW prime cards with lower APR and higher limits.

I had been messing with our credit files for a couple of months before finding this site. After reading the postings for hours I was able to achieve more in three weeks than I did in the three months before!

In April of this year my FICO was at 525 and my wife's was around 570. She had 29 derogs across the three CRA's, I didn't have any, but only had two years of credit after coming here from Britain.

After getting the derogs removed her score went up to 732 and mine improved to 723 with a bit of effort.

In the past two weeks we have obtained:

1. Amex Blue Cash - $20,000 @ 8.98%
2. MBNA - $5,000
3. Discover $7,5000
4. Amex Gold
5. 0% for 60 months on a new Jeep Liberty

and finally today:

6. Home Equity Loan from Wells Fargo Bank for $250,000 at a super rate.

Now it's time to say hasta la vista to Providian and their "competitive" 28.99% interest rate.

I guess it would fair to say that CreditNet has helped us out big time, for which I am grateful - 308,285 thank yous.

Good luck to you all!

Neil

Finally got DMB back to the interest rate I was paying two years ago. I brought the increase on myself, long before CN and understanding "the rules". If it weren't for my dealing w/the CRAs, calling DMB became SO easy - they are there to serve me, right?

Had a gym membership that kicked me overlimit twice. A few months later, they raised me from 11.74% to 17% and then 19%. I kept calling, asking, and getting no response to asking for my APR to be lowered. I called every month. I also paid off my balance, as you can see in the table below.

My lessons:
0) it does NOT hurt to ask for them to lower your rate. Once or twice I got a $20 credit because the CSR felt bad about not being able to help me.
1) it takes very little time to raise your rate.
2) it takes MUCH longer to lower it, and only slightly
3) paying off the balance *probably* helped, but perhaps time alone would have worked just as well.

I'm not sure if this means anything, but I have not placed a charge once I "got" the overlimit thing. I am hoping this sends a message - "I won't use your card at these rates" - but I have no way to measure.

07/01 11.74% 0
07/02 16.99% +5.25% 10,055
11/02 18.99% +2.00% 9,432
06/03 18.49% -0.50% 9,028
10/03 15.49% -3.00% 2,960
11/03 13.74% -1.75% 1,916
12/03 12.24% -1.50% 1,599
12/03 10.99% -1.25% 1,499

__________________
Ch7 BK filed Aug '01 - got $300k+ mtg 5.5% fixed w/5% down and car loan since - no luck, just built up CL w/crap cards and paid them off.
May'03 ->Apr'04 [fako]-FICO
EX 580->[695] 712
TU 590->[680] 697
EQ 585->[651] 679(BK off, gained 3 lousy points!)
balance was 18.5k, now $2k! utilization was 95%, now 10%

My credit story is a bit different, in that I never really had credit card problems. My parents scoffed credit, so my default value system was to only take on secured debt. Not a bad philosophy in a non-FICO world, but since my BK, I've gone to school.

I owed money to the meanest, leanest collection agency in this country - that's legal. Yes, the IRS. I won't bore anyone w/the details of how, but I wound up not filing for about 8 different years and owing over $500k to the IRS. Plus about $100k in state taxes.

After almost ten years of attempting to pay, Offer In Compromise, etc. I reached a point where I realized this nightmare of having my checking accounts levied and having to switch jobs to avoid the levies had to come to an end. I sought professional help - because I was so broke, I had never taken that step - and was advised to forget the OIC route and do a Ch7. I disliked the idea but also did not want to go through years of appealing an OIC and always feeling like Big Brother was watching my income, waiting to grab any pennies left on the table.

So I decided to file and in August of 2001, it was done. I was actually in a Federal Courthouse on 9/11/01, was first on the docket, went over my numbers and then the building was evacuated when the news about the second trade tower came out. So it's very easy for me to remember the date of my hearing.

I really did not care about my credit cards, but since a few had zero balances I kept them. I had great cards w/Citi, and they went. I kept the crap - had no clue - DMB, Aspire and Nextcard. Yeah, I can pick 'em.

Took a look at my credit card a year after I filed and was horrified. Took a Snyder seminar, heard about this agency (Bradley Ross) that would fix things for $50 a month and I thought to myself, I'm a clever guy, I'm an internet guy, I'll figure this out and save that money.

What I did not count on when I went BK was that it would take me so long to find work. I'm a tech guy, founded an internet startup, laid myself off w/everyone else and collected unemployment for the first time in my life. When that ran out, I scrambled a LOT longer than I would have liked before finding work again. I ran my zero balance credit cards up to $18k in very short order.

Then my lessons in credit cards began. I would describe most credit card companies as having a similar biz plan to drug dealers. You want some, it's free? Really, take some. Have some more. You like it? Great, here's more... oh, you NEED some? Well Stumpy, that's gonna COST you.

Saw my promo rates go to 24 frickin' percent, saw my DMB 11% climb to 19% and then I did the math on how long it would take to pay this crap back. WHOA!! Looked into CCCS and didn't like what I heard - yeah, half off and lower interest rates are great, but it seemed like the black marks on my CR would get worse. In looking for info, I stumbled across a few boards and kept reading and reading and reading....

And I started out on my goal - to get my balances down by the end of 2003, get my FICO scores up, get my bogus TLs deleted and try to get my public records - all THIRTY of them - to be gone or at least read "released" for the liens.

I made a lot of mistakes along the way, would have done it better and faster knowing what I learned, but that's why I hang around here now. Hopefully, I can help others avoid the same (now) obvious inefficiencies.

I have gotten my total owed - outside of a recent car loan with Chase - under $2k and hope to have it down to zero very soon. I've gotten about half my nasty TLs related to the BK deleted, and now have most of them accurately reporting IIB and not late or charge off (only).

I still lust for a "real" prime card, but since I just applied for Amex, BofA and Chase and got rejected - which really hurts, since I had a six month payment history w/Chase on my car loan - I know that's not going to happen for many years, until the BK falls off.

My immediate goals are paying that balance off and buying a home/condo sometime in '04. Since I have one child in college and another starting next year, what I have done to date and plan to do might seem ambitious, but I've never believed in setting the bar low and fully expect to continue making progress.

What can I offer here that's not commonly on the board? Perhaps that all of "this" is NOT personal and to take it to that level will not help you and probably hurt you in the long run. I've called CSRs at all the CRAs and CCs I deal with and I've found that being funny, charming and yes, even flirtatious, gets a lot more done than being angry. No matter how upset I am, I always start with "please help me to understand this, because I'm kinda slow today..." and never push it back on them, always take the brunt of the misunderstanding upon myself. I get MUCH more information this way, because they're not on the defensive.

__________________
Ch7 BK filed Aug '01 - got $300k+ mtg 5.5% fixed w/5% down and car loan since - no luck, just built up CL w/crap cards and paid them off.
May'03 ->Apr'04 [fako]-FICO
EX 580->[695] 712
TU 590->[680] 697
EQ 585->[651] 679(BK off, gained 3 lousy points!)
balance was 18.5k, now $2k! utilization was 95%, now 10%

CN pretty much helped me get the last part of rebuilding my credit history on track. I had perfect credit from about '91 all the way til '97. It was always nice applying for things and not worrying about being denied. Then I hit a rough spot and got screwed by an ex roommate, which resulted in a CO from an apartment complex we lived in. After that hit my credit, I wasn't so concerned about my 'perfect' rating any more. I ended up eventually getting 2 more COs and almost a 3rd before I decided to turn it around at the end of 2000. I started getting anal about my credit history again and haven't letting anything slide since then. When I found this board, my scores had already climbed back up for the most part. I was sitting in the 675-690 range on all 3 bureaus. I was actually trying to figure out how to negotiate a settlement when someone referred me to this board to maybe find some info. I learned what I wanted and then a TON more. Even though I had cleaned up my credit for the most part, the history would still haunt me until 2006-2007 when everything fell off. Thanks to this board, I've cleared up the negatives 3 years sooner than expected and have 2 flawless CRs and one that will hopefully come clean by the end of the month!

__________________
11/04
All 3 clean!!!
766 FICO average

ALOOOOOHA!!!

WE'RE BACK!!!


For anyone who missed it the Foxy Mrs. Butch and I have been in Hawaii, Honolulu, Oahu, etc., etc..


WOW!

What a fantastic 2 weeks. We did all the stuff. Helicopter tour of the islands. Submarine trip into the deep Pacific with the most awesome fish you could imagine. Flying over Volcano's and belly dancers, (my favorite part) :)


Might not be moving there after all tho. Dang that place is expensive. You can buy a 2 room hut for about $400,000. LOL


Were it not for CN, it never woulda happened.

:)


Problem: I had almost 4,000 emails when I got back. Unfortunately nobody knows why I only got the total number of emails - WITHOUT THE EMAILS.

They were all gone. Some have probably emailed me privately. Sorry but please do so again, as I missed it and do want to help where ever I can.


Glad to be back

.

__________________
Butch,

Now that you're on your way to perfect credit,
it's time to step up to the next level,
Make More Money!

Welcome back, Butch. Sounds like you had a fabulous time!!

I won't be around much the next couple of weeks myself. I may check in from time to time, probably late at night, but I'll be tied up with family and friends and giving gifts and....

__________________
The Answer is 42!!

*bump* for inspiration!

Hey - I'm grateful for the time I spent here some time ago (I still pop in now and then - hello - i'm here now :) so i'll throw my story into the mix.

Kind of like GEORGE - i never really had any credit problems - in terms of lates, bks etc. However - I had lived out of the country for most of my life - and when i came back - no one knew me from Adam.

I opened a checking acct with bank of america - and mostly used a debit card - however - a few years after that I realized that you gotta have credit to buy a car, a house, etc.

Soooo... I applied for a few cards - about 6 years ago - and was denied due to lack of credit history. Then i had the bright idea to apply for a Bank of America card - since i had my checking account there - and - voila - was approved for 2K.

Waited about 6 months and applied for a few more - was still denied by a few (at the time MBNA - and Capital One - denied me for lack of history) but got NextCard (ugh!) and Providian.

I think the turning point came about a year or two later when i decided to apply for another Bank of America card - and this time was approved for 7.5K., I was all happy and proud and stuff - and - as the saying goes - with the appetite comes the hunger (or is it - with the hunger comes the appetite - whatever :).

Anyhoo .. lemme try to make a looooonnnng story short.
As time went by - I cancelled the cards i no like - Nextcard - Providian - and concentrated on better companies - this is where Creditnet comes in - cuz i read about the ones i wanted to apply for - found out who they pulled, their requirements, others people's experiences, etc

In the meantime - i forgot to add - I became an officer in a small corporation (publishing company - my biz partner and meself - plus a few employees) and found out about the wonderful world of biz credit.

Now - truly - long story short:
6 years after my first credit card with Bank of America - I've acquired between personal and biz ccs - over 300K in credit.
That original 2K Bofa card is now 40K.

Creditnet (and later on creditboards,com and even later on artofcredit.com - all contributed to my credit knowledge - and - for that that - I humbly thank you all.

Oh, yeah - also made a few friends in the process - even met a few in Vegas about a year or so ago... it's been a fun and interesting journey.

Thanks for the memories.

<bump> for more inspirational stories

I found this board in February of 2003. My credit was trashed and I was 'renting' a room from a buddy. I had a car that got charged off, student loans delinquent, and my best FICO was a 475 TU. I had just been turned down for a job as a gas station manager, due to my poor credit. I couldn't even get utilities or bottled water to my house.

I studied everything meticulously, doing everything I could, taking every bit of advice from members of this site.

In May 2003 I got a job with Toyota, and now I am a fleet manager for the biggest dealer west of the Mississippi - because of good credit.

In August I got my own apartment in South Orange County, CA, where I pay $1250 a month (yikes!) for a 1 bedroom - again because of credit.

Last month I leased an 2004 Mercedes Benz Sports Sedan, the car of my dreams, with $0 down - because of a 720 Fico.

Today I got my first credit card - a Fleet Plat with 6K limit.

Now I am truly a snot-nosed Orange County resident, driving a Benz, and drinking bottled water.

However, due to my shaved-head and ink-covered body, people still ask, "Dude, who's car is that?"!

That's okay.

I can't even begin to explain how this site has changed my entire life. I really and truly owe my happiness to this board and its members. I am 100% serious.

Hope this testimonial is inspiration for those who may be apprehensive about pulling that first bureau.
Ya gotta start somewhere, and it is all worth it in the end. I never thought credit would be so important.

What a great story Chipper.

Keep up the good work.


I found an AMAZING poem written like around 300 BC, Appolanis.

"Come to the edge I said.
But we're afraid they said.
Come to the edge I said.
They came, I pushed them ...
and they soared like Eagles in the sun".


Pass it on my friend.

:)

.

__________________
Butch,

Now that you're on your way to perfect credit,
it's time to step up to the next level,
Make More Money!

Indeed! What a great story chip!!

Not only have I gained invaluable credit advice from this site, but I've gotten some great ideas on other things too. You guys keep up the good work.


From the Queen of the low 500's to the high 600's and climbing! It's constant work I tell ya..just when you think, you've got them where you want them, something from the past...pops up on your credit and you have to go into battle mode again..LOL!

Did the final leg of paperwork today, have been approved for a 5% down loan at 5.625% fixed 30 years.

Am now working on getting a 2nd 15% to eliminate PMI ($200 monthly). The deal is something I can live with today and can only get better. The 2nd will be at a higher rate, possibly a HELOC at prime +1.5% or fixed at 7.75%

The loan officer said he was impressed with how "in order" my paperwork and CR was. There was one lien not marked as released on EQ, had a release from IRS. My balances on CC were all close to zero, so my only debt is my car loan at $250. All ratios are great, I could have borrowed 25% more and I'm well within my means here.

Much of this is due to what I've absorbed here on CN and a few other boards. Thanks to everyone, I'm about five weeks from closing on my own place.

__________________
Ch7 BK filed Aug '01 - got $300k+ mtg 5.5% fixed w/5% down and car loan since - no luck, just built up CL w/crap cards and paid them off.
May'03 ->Apr'04 [fako]-FICO
EX 580->[695] 712
TU 590->[680] 697
EQ 585->[651] 679(BK off, gained 3 lousy points!)
balance was 18.5k, now $2k! utilization was 95%, now 10%

DELETED For my boyfriend:

Transunion
4 charge offs
1 repo
2 tax liens
1 civil judgement
1 30 day late



Equifax
5 charge offs
1 repo
2 tax liens




Experian
2 tax liens
5 charge offs

Thanks Creditnet

Here's mine:

Before I found CN I was living in the la-la-land of credit. I was post ID Theft (which went away only after I had an attorney handle it, and all in all was not as bad of an ordeal as the ID theft consequences that other people had to face), occasionally looking at my credit reports, but I never thought that I can clean them up all on my own.

Then, of course, when I came to CN, DH's scores were pretty low.

I started reading and reading and then doing some more reading. We had rather mundane issues (lates, inquiries), and with the help from CNetters, I have managed to take DH's scores up significantly and mine are right now in the 'walk in, apply, get it' category.

Currently, we are proud owners of a new SUV from Lincoln, almost ready to buy a house with a VA loan and our APRs are steadily going lower and lower.

The only thing holding us down still are balances on credit cards, but we obviously have to deal with that all on our own.

In other words, being a part of the CN made our lives much more comfortable and just simply easier. The wealth of knowledge that I found here is priceless.

Thanks guys!

PawMix

__________________
=====================

DH's Scores:

Experian 710
Equifax 698
TU 801

"Do radioactive cats have 18 half-lives?"

Bump 4 Lori.

:)

__________________
Butch,

Now that you're on your way to perfect credit,
it's time to step up to the next level,
Make More Money!