I have read your story with great interest. I have followed your pattern up until now. I have been successful recently with getting some better cards (just got Citibank $1000, Target $700, Gold HSB $??, Nordstrom, Vicky's Secret, Speigel all on the way but don't know the limits there yet either) and have been declined by some others I think (got the we are reviewing your application notice online for Fleet, AmEx and flat decline online from NextCard). I closed CCB (bandits) will close Orchard and Cap. One soon. I am going to keep 1st Premier and HSB because they are both 3+ year trade lines (my oldest open ones). You seem to imply in some of your posts that the inquiry thing is over emphasized sometimes. I am sure that I am looking at about 8 inquiries on all my reports now. What do think? Will the addt'l inquiries destroy my chances for a car loan or mortgage in 8-12 months? I weighed the benefits of more good tradelines with the dings from the inquiries. Do you believe that you can max out the number of inquiries and not do any more damage. Very curious on you philosophy regarding the inquiries. Any addt'l advice you have going forward to increase my limits or proper number of cards would be a huge help. Thanks!!
Since I don't know your fico score,I cant tell you. At 680 fico,Try and think of one inquiry as -10 points within 6 months,2 inquiries as -25(10 plus 15),three -45 ... Oversimplification but, after a year you'll be points ahead. VJ
Brain hinder Sorry ,Concerned ,I didn't notice you request for Roni.I meant no disrespect to either of you. Vj
Re: Brain hinder No that's fine. My question then is at 8 inquiries am I looking at a 120 point hit for the next 6 months? That sucks. I was kind of hoping that the maximum point deduction was going to be 50 points or something. Yikes.
Re: Brain hinder Its a function of how strong, how deep,and how old your credit file is,and how recent the inquiries are. If you have recent lates the enquiries will sting more. Just remember the inquiries degrade ever month to zero.The new open, major cc will slowly increase your score untill,and this is debated,between 3-5 cards. Interestingly, at 800 fico you could have 6 cards and not count against you,unless you start using them and keeping a balance.Most 800 fico don't have any balances on there cc. vj
Re: Brain hinder Which brings me to another question, how does one keep a zero balance AND use the card. Say I charge up my cards every month AND pay them in full when the bill comes. Depending on when the card reports the balance may or may not be zero. However, if I don't use the card that month, it reports no activity. So, the CCCCCC on Experian for instance would look like --CCCC--CC reflecting any months I don't use the card. So, which is right? Zero balance b/c no activity or take the chance that the card doesn't report the balance that I pay off every month? Catch my drift?
Concerned.... Congratulations on your new found credit. I would say our creditlines are almost identical. Boy you are following my post. lol. Anyway, I definitely say dont worry about the inquiries. You need credit to get your scores higher. The first inquiries hurt the worse and then the rest have a smaller effect on your score. That is what has happened to my scores and I am sticking to that. I had about 11 recent inquiries like you and my scores still sored to over 700 after a few months had past. The waiting 1-2 years for inquiries to fall off is BUNK. I would safely say that after 3-6 months your score recovers ALOT from inquires. (-120 points ) for inquiries???? Please. NO Way. That is absurd. Keep up the good work. I had no luck with nextcard or AMEX either. oh well. Have you considered the GM card. I really like it. But you dont need it. I love my HOusehold Gold btw. roni
Re: Concerned.... Yeah, I thought about the GM card but I think I am going to chill out for a few months here and see what happens with the scores. I have some old charge-offs from 95 that just are not going away. Including a Trans Union listing that only has one date! The date I paid it off in 2000. I think it is killing my Trans Union score but they won't budge. But for now, I am going to work on getting my ratios looking good and working on the reports again. Target does not have my limit for instance. I am going to sit on my inquiries for the next few months and hope to hit the 700s some day. I want that AmEx!!! It just seems like the hardest to get and the most prestigious.
Thanks Roni! And BTW thanks for the encouragement and keeping us up on the one way to make this crazy system work for us!
