Jewelry account

Well, if you can get an account opened up, why not?

But with a 500+ score looks to me like you need to do something about getting rid of the old bad stuff and getting your score up to something a bit higher than that.

You need to add a hundred or so point to that FICO score.

 

Stop applying for credit. Your inquiries are wasting valuable FICO points. With that type of score you're not going to be doing yourself any good with new accounts.


1. Stop applying for new credit.
2. Pay down, but keep open existing accounts.
3. Try for credit line increases with current accounts.
4. Dispute the negatives on your credit report.
5. Wait for your scores to jump about 620+ before you start applying for anything new. Citibank AA is a good start, but you're wasting an inquriy now.


It's not going to happen overnight. Maybe by the beginning of 2002 with some luck you'll see enough change, but I would not be promising a ring for the holidays if you have to get it on new credit.


Sorry... Good luck!

 

Paying things off that fast will not help your scores at all. Potential lenders want to see you making consistent payments over a fairly long period of time. They want to see you building a history of solid and consistant payments over at least a couple of years. That's what builds good credit as much as anything will. So you would be much better off to open yourself an account somewhere like Zales or one of the strip mall jewelers that report and are pretty easy to get credit from and then put your money in the bank in a savings account and stretch those payments out as long as they will let you without it costing you too much in interest.

That's why car loans and house mortgage payments count for so much.
Another place you can see if you can get an account open is on the TV. Credit Jewelers or something like that advertises all over the nation. Their ad always features some dude dressed up in a cowboy outfit and having to do with horses. It's a pretty famous ad and should be running everywhere in the U.S. as far as I know.

If you can't find them, let me know and I will see if I can get you their toll free number. They claim they will finance anybody regardless and report your payments to the credit bureau. I don't know if they pull your files or not, but if they do, so what. If they are easy credit and don't charge much interest like they claim on TV then the hit won't make you enough difference to worry about.

If you want good credit then you have to do positive things to build it up. Yes, it's going to cost you some FICO points, but if you don't jump out there applying to every store and CC company you can imagine, it won't hurt you that much. I've got a ton of them and it isn't ripping me up that much.

 

I will do that, but I'd be willing to bet that there are others here who can and probably will come up with the correct information before I do. I don't watch TV all that much, so I sincerely hope that others who do have the info you request more or less at their fingertips will feel free to jump in and provide the info.

That way you will probably come up with the info much sooner and it sure won't hurt my feelings any if they do come up with it.

 

[ shamelessly but only slightly edited by pbm ]

There are two things going on here... When it comes to scores. FICO does NOT look at payment history to determine your score. It looks at the credit ratios.... The more credit you have that you don't use, the better. If you max out account(s) it has a direct IMMEDIATE impact on your scores. Paying them off will also have an IMMEDIATE impact on your scores (once they report to the cras).

If you want to build higher credit limits, creditors prefer that you carry a balance like Bill suggests. They want to make money off of you... they do that with purchases and interest. At the same time, they want to see you make prompt payments, but nothing too much to make them loose profit.

However, it does not play at all into your FICO scores. If you open new accounts, it hurts your scores unless the help they provide with your credit ratios out balance the negative impact. New accounts hurt on average for six months.

Want to see a spike in your score? Pay off the open accounts... and leave them open. Your credit ratios will make it happen.

 

Dinob12

Do you have derogatories on your credit reports? If so, are you disputing them with the credit bureaus?

If you are disputing your old derogatories be careful not to dispute the oldest derogatory on your credit report. Find the oldest derogatory on your report and leave it alone like it was a snake because in a sense it is.

Here is why. One of the important things to building a good FICO score as well as good credit is the age of the overall report. Creditors tend to shy away from bright shiny new credit. Here is an example.

I am 71 years old. I should have a credit history going back at least 5 to 7 years with no derogatories and a long history of good payments to various types of creditors and a high income level (regardless of my personal physical age).

If I have a bright shiny new looking credit history, something has got to be wrong. That's just common sense from the potential creditor's viewpoint, especially if no long ago bk is present to show why all the credit is brand new and has only a short history. So if you wipe out all the old credit and then start building new credit you will have a very low FICO score until your good accounts age out and some of them start dropping off the end of the reporting period linit shich I will incorrectly call SOL or statute of limitations on reporting of positive credit for illustrative purposes.

So if you are disputing derogatories on your credit report, it is not a wise idea to dispute the oldest derogatory item you have on your list because if it comes off, your FICO will plummet and
you would have a much tougher time getting credit. A real old derog don't usually hurt you all that much. Once your good credit references get to be about 4 to 5 years old then you can go after that one remaining tired old dog and get it off and your credit will then look a whole lot better, but just remember that you need a placeholder on your report and if it's an old one, too bad.

 

How hard is it to get a jewelry card? Or to get the 0% financing that Kay Jewelers offers?

 

I opened a Zales Jewelry account years ago, back about 1975 and it was real easy even with a totally clean history file.

I don't know if it's still so easy or not, but you can always try.

 

Probably not that hard, they are motivated to lend to you since they want you to buy from them and the market is competitive. The 0%, I don't know about though they may reserve that for 'prime' credit. But, if that fails, most jewelry stores will offer some sort of lay away plan - potentially in conjunction with credit. That's what they did with my husband so many years ago. Gave him credit with a very low limit after he made a few lay away payments.

 

I agree with EdG. My husband got a Kays account when he was eighteen years old with no credit. Nada.
Believe me if you walk in and want to spend $2000-3000 for an engagement ring and put 20% down they will make it work. Good luck and congratulations on your upcoming engagement. Were you going to propose on Christmas?

Dani

 

The "item" I want to purchase is 6K. I'd like to not have to empty out my savings account for that purchase. Put 3K down the rest on some sort of low interest account. I also don't want to ding up my report with lots of inquiries. I'm sure I would get financed if they pulled EQ.

 

Here is some info on Zales....

Zales and Baily Banks & Biddle are both served now by a new bank: Hurley State Bank, Associates, etc (actually CITI-Financial). They now report to the CRAs regularly. The old bank was Jewelers National Bank. I am not sure if the standards have changed, but it appears they are a tad tougher. Gordon's jewlers may also use the same bank, not sure. Citi came in bought out the Zales & BBB accounts I think in January. They even pulled updated ARs on all accounts and made adjustments as needed....

 

I was able to get a Zales card a few years back when my score was in the mid to low 500's and a couple of collections showing. The terms for bad credit are not too appealing. Typically you will get something like a $500 card but will be required to pay 20-30% with your own money. Zales has not offered a credit increase and want to pull a hard inquiry to give me one. No go. I don't like their products enough or their terms so it sits there.

-Om

 

I saw a web site www.ice.com that has engagement rings. They can spread the payments out over 5 months and bill your credit card each month with no interest charges. I'm very hesitant to buy a ring over the internet but hey maybe that will work for you.

Good luck