Greetings All: I got an interesting 'pre-approved' credit card offer in the mail yesterday from Capital One: Platinum MasterCard: Credit Limit: Up to $20K Interest Rate: Variable, 8.9% floor, or LIBOR +2.12%, whichever is greater. Grace Period: 25 Days Annual Fee: NONE, Ever Finance charge computation: Average daily balance, including new purchases. Late Fee: $29.00 Balance Transfer Fees: NONE, Ever Cash Advance Fees: NONE, Ever Overlimit Fee: NONE, Ever And most interesting: NO TELEMARKETING Gee, you think that Capital One is finally 'getting it'? I'm going to send it in, see how much of a line they give me and dump some of my MBNA cards, and the 9.9% FirstUSA that I have left. My first FICO reason code is "number of accounts", so dumping a couple of cards should bump it up some more.
Hi stranger Look time no see J Edgar, I hope all is well I could have used your input a few posts ago. Mom
Re: Hi stranger J.Edgar, I think that it sounds like a good deal to me and it rarely see Capital One for giving out Platinium card. Even though I got platinium cards from other major banks and they don't sent me pre-approval application to me. Ron
Re: Hi stranger Good to see your posts again, J. Edgar. If I ever apply for a pre-approved Cap 1, this would be it. No doubt they're trying to get some ultra-prime market share. Saar
Re: Saar Saar, With regard to the ultraprime market, there is an article in the April 2 issue of Forbes about Cap One that says exactly that--in fact, they have been courting that market for about three years now. The article also said that they are planning to "raise their low credit ceilings to help expand their loan portfolio." Hmm, they DID give me an increase last month when I threatened to close.... Cheers, Cindy
Re: Saar Thanks for the info Cindy. No closure threats are necessary. Simply call their Retention dept. or their Consumer Advocate. The former works 80% of the time, the latter - 100% (so far). Saar
Re: Congrats!! Thanks everyone. I've been a bit busy searching for a new job. I quit my last job because the new management of the company and the IT department in particluar is totally &*$%ing insane. They were shocked. When pressed I told them that "I wish to pursue other interests." and let it go at that. So I've been enjoying my time off, looking for a job, catching up with friends, having guests in from out of town, been to Key West, SF and Ptown, etc. I haven't been checking in much on the board. It's hard to keep up with the volume. Quite frankly, I've gotten most of my credit issues squared away and my Beacon/FICO is just over 750, which is more than sufficient to get the best deal on a mortgage, so credit has not been in the forefront of my mind. My next big project is cleaning up my partner's credit. He's still in a Ch 13 BK Plan from when his former partner was ill and dying. His partner had gotten dementia and was running around buying things left and right and running up the credit cards. They had 7 food processors when he died in 1996. He's paid on the Ch 13 for over 3 years out of the 5, so we're going to try to petition the court to wrap it up and discharge it. Most of the last activities on his report should be 1996 or 1997, so there's a good chance we can clear some of the derogs off of it due to poor record keeping on the part of the creditors. I know he has a second file with all of the bureaus because I put him on my Amex and another card and refused to give his SSN, so he's been getting preapproved offers for Platinum Cards, etc, because of the Amex Platinum and Platinum Visa on his second file (that's missing an SSN). The CRAs think the bankrupt version of him still lives in Houston. "Authorized User" cuts two ways. I still have to clean up some old, closed, duplicate accounts on my own files. They aren't really affecting much of anything score-wise, but they are just incorrect. I'm probably going to close a couple more credit cards as well. I'm going to see if I can get MBNA to consolidate the 4 accounts I have with them into two and dump FirstUSA if Cap1 comes through. Although First USA has been sending 2.99% promotional balance transfers again. Too bad I don't have much in the way of balances to transfer. They finally stopped sending convenience checks on the accounts I closed 4 months after I closed them. Next stop: Mortgage application! Fortunately we have a good friend who is a wholesale mortgage broker and can point us in the right direction for the best deal. I hope everyone else is doing well. --J
Re: Congrats!! I'm happy for you J. Edgar. Sounds like you doing great! Hope you find the job you deserve. BTW, how many cards do you have that your reason code states "number of accounts"? I'm just wondering as I have 6 open accounts now and am trying to compare how much is too much. Thanks!
Re: Congrats!! My current open accounts are: Amex Platinum Amex Platinum Extended Purchase/Sign & Travel (shows as separate account, they won't combine) Optima Platinum First USA B of A USAir Visa MBNA (4 accounts, 2 originally MBNA, 1 Travelers MC (before Citibank bought them), 1 Fidelity Investments MC) Gulf Oil (which I've been trying to get off since I've not used it in 8 years and the card I have expried 5 years ago and they never sent a new one) So that would make 10 in total. I'm going to try and get rid of the Gulf account off the files again, and also dump First USA if Cap1 comes through and dump the two newest MBNAs if the won't combine. So that should get me down to 7, which is probably still 'too many' for the FICO model, but not a serious issue. By the way, my 4th reason code from FICO was "account balances too high" and that was just from the previous month's balances that were reported that were paid in full. So when you get into the 700+ FICO range, the reasons start grasping at straws. Perhaps if I didn't use my cards at all, my score would go up 1 point, but then I'd get "too few accounts with balances" as a reason.
