I have a 30 year old Sears store card with a perfect history. They sent me the "guaranteed approval" for the Sears Mastercard with a limit "up to $8000". My store card has a $6500 limit. I read the fine print and it is clear that I will get a Mastercard - this is not one of those you are "guaranteed the right to apply". Here is the problem. I have very high utiliztions on my other cards. I got my APR's jacked up when my balances went up. My plan is to use a new Sears Mastercard to do balance transfers from other cards so that I can take advantage of other BT offers. All my other cards are now offering good BT rates, but I can't take advantage of them because I have very little left in my credit lines. This new card could be a huge help in getting the balances down. I posted this problem the other day. The suggestion was to try to get them to "convert" my old Sears card into a Mastercard with the same limit, rather than getting a new Mastercard. I tried that and it failed. I posted again and mj suggested going to an account specialist. I just tried that and failed. They said a customer can only convert when Sears makes a conversion offer. There is no way to override the system. If I return my preapproval, they will pull my credit report, see the high balances, and probably offer me $500 or $1000, which will not help me in getting my APR's down. I am caught with high APR's and no place to go. This would help me lower my monthly interest payments from $1100 to $400, but I need somewhere to transfer the balances to start the ball rolling. Because of high balances, I can't seem to get another card. Sears is my only hope now. I used up my savings during two very serious illnesses (that's why my balances are high). I was unable to work for a couple years and ran up $150,000 in medical bills. Those are paid off now. I can pay my monthly bills, but cannot make a dent in the credit card balances. Sorry for the rambling, but I really need help. A couple questions: 1. With a FICO just above 680, what kind of credit limit can I expect from Sears, given my circumstances, if I just mail back the preapproval? 2. Anyone have any other suggestions? Any help would be appreciated.
Sears pulled my TU when I had a 724. My revolving % was high but only 1k in total debt. My inquiries were at around 13. They turned me down flat and that was for a little sears card- not even a visa or something.
Thomas, I think you have a good read on the situation and you should follow your instincts -- don't apply for the Sears Mastercard. With your score at 680 (very close to 700!) and high balances, extra inquiries can really hurt your score, so any and every inquiry needs to be a sure thing for you. I'm not clear if your medical bills appear on your credit report, and if they do whether they are positive or are listed as a paid collection or something. If you own a house, consider a home equity loan, even if you have little equity, 125% LTV loans are out there. If not, your goal of consolidating is still the best bet. You may want to ask around at smaller financial institutions or credit unions you may have access to, to see if you can find anyone who does their own underwriting. Sometimes if you show them your credit report (that you accessed yourself) they can give you an idea of what they might be able to do (understanding that info would have to be verified) without a useless score lowering hard inquiry. Just bypass anyone who says you have to apply to find out, or anyone who is not clearly at a decision making level. Of all people, Household is running some very persuasive ads here in Los Angeles for their HFC finance division, basically aimed at people in your situation, or others who may have fallen behind in payments a bit. You have a good score, and are not currently behind in payments, so they may be able to get you a reasonable interest rate. I'll probably get flamed for even mentioning a finance company, but sometimes a little breathing room can be as important as a low interest rate, especially when you are sort of on the cusp of making progress or falling behind financially. I'm no expert and the above is just my opinion, and my long-winded way of saying look around and consider all your options. Good luck and keep reading creditnet!
Thanks for the imput. What I need is the breathing room. I have pretty much given up on the idea of sending in the preapproval for the Sears Mastercard. Am afraid of getting a $500 limit. Any other opinions are appreciated. This thing is really getting me down. Right now, I am paying down the principal by $100 per month and $1100 goes to interest payments. Gertting the APR down would enable me to pay more like $800 per month towards principal. Two and a half years ago, the doctor gave me "up to" five years to live. I'll never get this paid off in time to die. I know IC Systems and NCO will follow me to the other side to collect, but will the other creditors and CA's? But, I am planning on going to heaven. Can IC and NCO even get close to that place? (Just joking, I don't have any collections and we now know IC is monitoring the board). There are no medical bills on my report. Everything is clean, no negatives. Medical bills are all paid for.
Thomas- Sorry it didn't work for you. I went through my scratch pad to see the exact steps I went through ... I did have both MC ($500 limit) and Premier card ($18300 limit). I think that may be why they did the coversion - I was on the phone with the MC customer service person to close the MC account when they xferred me to MC retention. BUT ... the MC retention person was the one who initiated the Premier card conversion. I'm not advising you to get the MC - they do a hard inq. for sure - but maybe if you can get to MC customer service, and ask to speak with a "retention specialist" ... and be adamant about it ... you might get through. MC customer service is 800-669-8488. I hope that works... and also don't forget, as we all learned with Target ... call and call again until you get to someone who has a "soft spot". I'm sorry about your situation - it's not a good feeling to be between a rock and a hard place. A high LTV equity line may be a good option for you as previously suggested. I'm guessing with that kind of an interest expense monthly, you're balances are pretty high.... somewhere around $50k? You may need a little more than breathing room here. I applaud your high score and positive way you're trying to handle repayment! Which creditors are the highest balances with ... any chance of negotiating an interest rate reduction? Good luck- mj
Thomas, Please email me personally. Please review my thread at: http://consumers.creditnet.com/straighttalk/board/showthread.php?s=&pgnum=&postid=236369#post236369 I'm rather astonished more people haven't paid attention to it. We sure need to head these problems off sooner rather than later don't we?
mj: Balances are about $70,000. I came close to dying twice. Two totally separate medical problems. Lost a couple years of work. Now everything is going well, but I can only pay interest and a little bit of principal each month. Have tried to get the interest rate reduction. Citi was great, dropping me from over 20% to 9.9%. MBNA won't budge, but they are 13.99% which is bad but not terrible. I had Nextcard and now Merrick at about 20% and they won't budge. My other three cards are all from FirstUSA at 20%+, and they vow to never budge. But, they are offering me 9.9 BT deals every couple weeks. And, MBNA is ofering 3.9% BT rates. I just need some manuvering room to take advantage of these rates. I think I may go ahead and apply for the Sears Mastercard since it is guaranteed approval, then try to combine it with my Sears store card to bump up the credit limit. Thanks for the support. Incidently, I think it was Marci who gave me the info on how to get my Citi APR reduced. This was about 18 months ago. It would not work for me at the time, but I saved it and did it in December. Two of these cards are joint cards with my wife (about $12,000). My goal is to get them paid off before I croak. The others are not in her name, so she is not liable. All assets are in her name, so there is no estate for the creditors to get. If I can get these APR's down, I think I can get these two cards paid off.
Thomas, Is a HELOC an option for you? Even in your wife's name since she holds all of the assets. It would take care of what you need to do, which is give you a short term place to BT to and from. We are constantly using ours for that. Frankly, I don't know how we'd pull off moving money around if we didn't have the HELOC. We don't keep balances there long term, we just use it as a "short term holding area." Our HELOC is only in one name but we have moved money from joint cc accounts and from the other spouse's cc accounts to and from it. You shouldn't need to have a balance on it for more than a few days at a time in order to accomplish what you are looking to do, then it would be zeroed out again and could be left completely idle. Is this a possibility for you? DemPooches
HELOC is not an option. We already hve two mortgages and cannot qualify for a refinace at this time. I have given this a lot of thought and this is a viable plan. I am not a charity case, I pay all my bills on time and always have. I just got into trouble because I had two serious back to back illnesses. The credit card companies jacked my interest when they saw I had no where to move my balances. They took advantage of me. I am worrying myself sick trying to do the right thing. Right now, only two of the cards are in my name and my wife's. The others are in my name only. All assets are in her name, so when I am gone, the creditors have nothing to go after. I only have to protect her from those two cards, totaling about $12,000. When the doctor tells me I have only six months or less, I will get credit life on these two accounts through the credit card company. When I'm gone, the insurance will pay those off. The other creditors can take the loss. In the meantime, I will try to get the APR's down so that I can at least lower my payments some. Thanks for your help. Any other suggestions are greatly appreciated. I hope this is not too depressing for anyone. I don't let it bother me.
Thomas- I wish you didn't have to worry about this kind of mundane stuff - live what you can while you can and to hell with the rest of it. I guess I don't really have anything to add ... except my best wishes for peace. -mj
