My name is John Shimmer and I host www.millcbs.com - otherwise known as Millennium Credit Building Strategies. I maintain the "Ultimate Creditor/CRA List" - a free resource to all, used to help determine which CRA a potential creditor may utilize when requesting your credit history relative to an application for a loan, credit card, etc. I maintain the list, but the info is provided by visitors like you by entering a creditor name, the CRA(s) that they used and your zip code. This way, others who live in your region can use the list to get an idea of which CRA might be pulled. This helps those with one particular credit report that might be "better" than another. What I'm looking for is suggestions for enhancement to the existing site. What would you like to see? What would helpful sorting/grouping options be? Would you like details on the dates that the inquiries were added to the database? You get the picture. Please feel free to post comments and suggestions here or email them to jshimmer@millcbs.com. To visit the current site, go to www.millcbs.com Be sure to grab your credit reports and add your inquiries to the site. Other like you will appreciate your efforts. Rest assured that I don't collect personal information, nor do I, in any way, share, sell or furnish the information to anyone except the viewing public that uses the site. And I don't do advertisements and annoying profit making things like that. I include a link for potential advertisers to email me, but that's just so I can tell them 'no thanks'. In the future, I might allow an ad or two, but they'd simply be for places like this. Simply put, I was once in your shoes. I just want to return the help that was once given to me by consumer credit resources like creditnet.com. Thanks! John Shimmer Millennium Credit Building Strategies Home of the Ultimate Creditor/CRA List www.millcbs.com
Here's a tip. Allow folks to input "Denied @ fico score=" and "Approved at fico=" scores. That list would kick much a$$ with that kind of info. Been meaning to email you about that one.
John, I love your site. It has been a tremondous help. My suggestion is what a couple people mentioned the other day...how about a creditor information list. Addresses, phone #, e-mails, etc. I think it would a great help to the board. Dani
WIFE AND I, DENIED EVERYTHING WITH A F.I.C.O. SCORE OF 685-741... Except the STUPID NEXT CARD DEAL with 18.99% and $50.00 BT fee...
I'm thinking about also including some sort of 'rating system' on the creditors. You know, rate 1 thru 10 for customer service, complaint resolution, yada yada yada. And a 'comments' section attached to each 'vote'. For each CRA and creditor, I've got locations (addresses, PO Box, city/state/zip), phone numbers (fax/phone), contact names, and email addresses. For each inquiry, I've got the basic info (who/which CRA) + inquiry date, FICO of applicant, approval/denial and applicant's zip code (for determining city/state of applicant @ time of inquiry). And it will be a super configurable search utility (i.e., creditors who approved applicants in TEXAS with a FICO of less than nnn within the past xx months). Then some items in the results will be clickable (i.e., click on creditor or CRA name and get all contact name, email, phone, addresses). More suggestions?!?! John. www.millcbs.com
And perhaps WHICH product was applied for (i.e., Platinum Select Visa, AAdvantage Select MasterCard, home equity loan/LOC, auto loan, etc.) John www.millcbs.com
Sounds Great John.. excellent site. Please everyone...Update the database, it is there as a tool to help YOU
Put in an "other comments" section. Like "will not consider you if you have a bankruptcy in past 5 years" or " will not approve you if debt ratio is above 50%". A lot of people here get insight when they call to find out why they were turned down. It would help if there was a place to share those comments. Also, limits the creditors impose such as no more than two of their cards or they will let you have up to three of their cards.
John, I just submitted a suggestion at millcbs for sorting by state. Thanks for what you have created. It has been a help to many here. Mist
John, Could you include a field requiring the date an inquiry was made (month and year would be sufficient) so that people could monitor when during a given year, a CC issuer was using one CRA rather than another? I think the list is fine, but since some companies don't use CRAs arbitrarily based on an applicant's state but sometimes exclusively based on a "sale" by the CRA, knowing when a company is frequenting a specific CRA would be helpful. (I.e. Target has switched from Experian to Equifax recently, and a newcomer would have no way of knowing which CRA was pulled most recently). Thanks for all your hard work,
Tom - A comments field is included in the database design and in the dB table. I just have decide how I'm going to present the interface to (a) accept the input and (b) how to display it. Mist - Sorting by Creditor, CRA or State is there. Marci - The date is automatically added to the record. I use the date the person added the item to the site. I don't expect people to be pulling out 9 month old credit reports to add them to the database. Thanks! John Shimmer Millennium CBS Home of the Ultimate Creditor/CRA List www.millcbs.com
Hi John, I just wanted to say I think your site is great and I'm doing my part by updating my info. Thanks a lot for your willingness to help people like me (who need all the help they can get!) help ourselves. Looking forward to the changes. ")
That isn't my point. If I looked at a creditor a year from now (and I'm sure you want your site to exist for several years), it would be nice to see which CRAs the creditor frequented at certain seasons. From what I remember, there is no field where *I* can see what date (just month/year would be sufficient) an inquiry was pulled. If I look up AmEx and there are 20 entries for TU, 15 entires for EXP, and 10 entries for EQX - I have no way of knowing as a potential applicant when such inquiries were pulled. As of now, they are only listed according to state, and are more or less equally distributed by state. That doesn't tell me whether Amex pulled all TU in March 2000, then went to EXP in September 2000 and then focused on EQX in June 2001. All I'm saying is that if a creditor favors a particular CRA - showing a date on the site would give people an idea of which CRA was "en vogue" most recently. Obviously most major creditors pull randomly based on the state of the applicant - but there are some creditors who pull based on their relationship with a specific CRA at a given time.
THE CRA'S DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW WHICH CREDIT REPORT THEY WILL PULL...they can change with a change in the weather...also they can have a "SALE" on EXPERIAN credit reports that month, so you ASSUME they always pull EQUIFAX...but not this month...
John, what about the people that are visiting you're sight for the first time? Do you want them to just add the inquiries that were pulled recently, or all of the inquiries on their report. If they add all of the inquiries, the system will assume that they were all pulled that day.
Okay -- I made the changes. Visitors can now provide the date for each inquiry they add, instead of using the current date. You can also now add and search for creditor and CRA mailing addresses and phone numbers, in addition to the Creditor/CRA data. Shortly, I will enable the screens to add Creditor and CRA email addresses and employee/contact names. Thanks! Be sure to visit the site and add your inquiries, as well as creditor and CRA addresses and phone numbers! John Shimmer Millennium CBS Home of the Ultimate Creditor/CRA List www.millcbs.com
