Well I just got off the phone again with a providian rep. The deal here is I have two cards already. I am in the making of rebuilding my credit and need INFORMATION. I am willing to take there rediculous 23% financing to help my credit rebuilding but today I found out that 1. they do not except balance transfers. creditors also look at the amount of credit you already have when determining if they will give you credit. Not that I am worried about Providian not giving credit but if I apply for a loan in the future and I have on my record that I have three visa cards I may be denied because they may think three is to many already. I have checked on that in the past so I am right. So with providian I am stuck with three cards instead of one. 2nd. they could not tell me what my credit limit would be. If they go through all the trouble of sending out millions of applications to people hten the least they could do Is inform you of your EXACT credit limit. A credit limit up to 3000.00 could mean 1 dollar or 1500 there for I am wasting my time with this company. Sorry but I do not have that information here and if your not satisfied you can return it doesn't cut it. Every application you apply for reflects your credit history and applying for a caaard your going to turn down is not good. Providioan needs more customer satisfaction. I recieved there application from mail because a COMPUTER told them i qualify. Not because a persons actually checked on me. Then a computer can also calibrate what my credit limit should be and have that information avalible to me when i call. Now thats doing a job right the first time. After all this is the second time I have denied Providian the opotunity to make them money. After all who's making who cash?
Three Visas will not stop must creditors from issuing you another card. It all depends on how you handle your credit. I have 48 accounts in good standing as of my last Experian report. Profit from the experience. http://www.creditsense.com
It is a mix. I have a lot of Visas and MasterCards. Close to 20. Profit from the experience. http://www.creditsense.com
Please let me know in what order you got the cards. as institutions have different criteria it would be helpfull to know where to apply at for maximum building potential!
Michael; Mine is an old credit history. It takes patience and discipline to build a portfolio of credit cards. Going back, I would say the easiest cards to get were oil and department store cards. American Express was an easy one to get and build on. Your limit is usually based on your spending pattern. You make full payments every month and establish a good relationship with an excellent company. I now have multiple accounts both personal and business with Amex. Visa, Mastercard and Discover came by later. I have multiple cards from Chase and First USA. I also have cards from Providian, First Union, Bank of New York, First Bankcard, Capital One and Bank of America. Profit from the experience. http://www.creditsense.com
In 1997 and early 1998 the big MC and Visa issuers like First USA, Chase, Citibank, Cap 1, Providian and MBNA were giving out cards like candy. They really didn't care how many other cards you had, they wanted you to have THEIR cards. They wanted market share. People actually got accounts in their 3 year old toddler's name or their pet's name. At the end of 1998, I had around 20 MCs and Visas as well. I've since cancelled many of them. It was just getting ridiculous. Every day my PO Box was stuffed full of promo rate convenience checks and other ways of running up a big balance. Now that interest rates have gone up and their margins have gotten thin, the issuers are tightening up on underwriting criteria and actually looking at how much other credit someone has. If however, you have a really good FICO score (720+) and otherwise pristine credit, you will likely get issued an account if you don't already have one with that issuer.
One of the main reasons that you may have had difficulty with getting them (or any other issuer) to give you a credit line amount before you applied is the fact that normally CRAs do not have information on file regarding your income. This type of information can change very rapidly, so they just don't keep track of it. Income is the major factor in determining a credit line, whereas credit history is the main factor is determining whether to issue an account in the first place. Even "pre-approved" applications require you to state your income. (Note: You can include as "other income" items such as reimbursements from your employer for expenses, such as travel expenses. The issuer is interested in how much money you have available to spend, even if it's your employer's money. They certainly want a piece of the action if you frequently charge airline tickets, hotels, rental cars, and meals on credit cards.) In fact, if the number you state as income is not inconsistant with your credit history, it's unlikely that the issuer will even bother to go to the effort and expense to verify it, particularly since most larger employers will only verify the fact that someone is or is not an employee and will not discuss specific salary information. That's why you have to provide copies of W-2s and paystubs with a mortgage application.
FICO score I have recently become aware of the FICO score in relation to a car loan I took out. My score was 550 and I didn't get a great rate (10%). I would like to find out EXACTLY (if possible) how this score is calculated, since my credit union uses formulas based on this number alone, and I can refinance down to as low as 6.5% if I can drive my score up. Is this information available anywhere? Thanks in advance!
RE: FICO score Take a look at: http://www.fairisaac.com/ Look in the section that explains credit scoring. Fair Isaac has responded to growing public pressure to be more forthcoming about what factors go into a credit score. This site does not have very specific information about how to raise your score, but it will give you a good idea of what to look at. The first step is to get copies of your credit reports from all 3 major CRAs and see if there are any major mistakes on them, like collection and charge off accounts that aren't yours, accounts that aren't yours with late payments on them, etc. The key to raising your score is paying your bills on time and keeping your balances low in relation to the amount of available credit you have.
