c/credit-score-help

Got denied for a $200 store card because my credit mix was 'too thin'

I was at Home Depot last week buying a new saw blade and the cashier talked me into applying for their store card, figured why not since I pay off my one card every month. The denial letter came three days later saying I only have one type of credit on my report and that's not enough for them. How are you supposed to build a mix when nobody will give you a second card in the first place?

That one lady at the furniture store who grilled me about my score before letting me open a card

I was at Ashley Furniture in Denver last Saturday trying to get a store card for a new couch, and the cashier literally asked me what my credit score was before she'd even touch the application. She said 'I need to know if it's over 680 or I'm not wasting my time.' It was super weird but kinda refreshing because she saved me from a hard pull I wasn't ready for. Has anyone else had a random person at a store get that nosy about their credit?

Got my credit limit raised from $1,500 to $4,000 after 6 months of consistent payments

I used to just pay the minimum on my card and hope for the best. Then back in February, I started paying my full statement balance every single month. I even set up auto-pay to avoid forgetting. Yesterday my bank sent me a message saying they bumped my limit without me even asking. Has anyone else seen a jump like that just from steady on-time payments?

That $35 credit monitoring subscription I canceled after 2 months

I signed up for one of those premium credit monitoring services back in 2021 (thought it would catch fraud faster), and it cost me $35 a month for basically nothing I couldn't get for free. Has anyone else paid for something like this and realized it wasn't worth it?

Went from 620 to 740 in 18 months without a loan or credit card

I paid off a medical bill that went to collections and got a secured card from my credit union, used it for gas only and paid it off every month. It took about a year and a half but my score jumped over 100 points just from those two things. Has anyone else seen big gains from just paying down old debt and using a secured card?

Hit 800 credit score and it barely changed anything

I finally cracked 800 after years of careful payments and low balances, but my car loan rate was the same as when I was at 720. Why do we obsess over these numbers if lenders don't really reward you past a certain point?

My credit score dropped 40 points in one week because of a $29 mistake

Honestly, I was checking my credit score every day last month and it was sitting at 720. Then I missed a payment on a small store card I forgot I even had - a $29 balance for a t-shirt I bought in Denver. The card company reported it to all three bureaus and boom, dropped to 680 in under 7 days. Ngl, it took me 4 months of making every payment on time to get back to where I was. Has anyone else had a tiny bill wreck their score like that?

I finally got an old medical bill removed from my credit report after 8 months of back and forth

Turned out it was a $187 charge from a clinic I went to in 2019 that they never actually sent me a bill for, but they kept reporting it to the credit bureaus. Has anyone else had success getting old medical stuff removed without paying the full amount?

Why does nobody talk about medical collections falling off after 7 years

I had a $340 bill from an ER visit in Detroit back in 2016 that I just forgot about. It showed up on my credit report last year and dropped my score from 720 to 640. I called the hospital and they told me they sold it to a collection agency, but I found out that since it was from 2016, it'll fall off next year anyway. Has anyone else just waited out old medical debt instead of paying it?

Rant: carrying a balance doesn't help your score at all

I keep seeing people say you need to carry a balance month to month to build credit. That's wrong. I paid off my $2,800 Chase card in full every month for 3 years and my score hit 780. Has anyone else had a bank tell them this myth?

Found out paying off a closed account actually dropped my score 22 points

I had this old credit card from 2018 that I stopped using when they closed it for inactivity. It was showing up on my reports with a $0 balance but still as a closed account. Thought it would help to finally pay off the tiny $47 annual fee they said I still owed. Big mistake. I checked Credit Karma after it posted and my score dropped from 712 to 690. Turns out that made it look like a recent late payment or something because the account reactivated in a weird way. Wish I had just left it alone. Anyone else get burned by trying to clean up old accounts like this?

Picked a secured card over a store card last year

I was trying to rebuild after some mistakes in my 20s and had to decide between a $200 secured card from Capital One or a store card from JCPenney. Went with the secured card because it reported to all three bureaus, not just one. After 8 months my score went up 45 points. Has anyone else had better luck with one type over the other?

Told my credit was ruined from a $35 library fine... actually worked out

Applied for a store card for a 15% discount and lost 28 points off my credit score.

My TransUnion dropped that much just from one hard pull and the new account hitting my report, has anyone else seen this kind of hit from a single store card application?

Paid $200 for a credit repair company and got nowhere

I signed up with CreditRepair.com back in June and paid them $99 a month for two months. All they did was send dispute letters I could have written myself. Has anyone else found these services to be a total waste of money?

My dad's 5 minute rant about credit card utilization from 2017

I was cleaning out my old emails last night and found a message my dad sent me back in 2017. It was just a link to a NerdWallet article about keeping credit usage under 30%. At the time I was 22 and had a $300 limit card I maxed out on pizza and gas. I ignored him for years until my score dropped 60 points last spring after I put a $600 vet bill on a $2,000 card. Has anyone else had a family member give them advice they wish they'd listened to sooner?

Thought credit builder loans were a scam but tried one anyway

I saw ads for credit builder loans everywhere and figured they were just another way to trap people in debt. But after my score stalled at 640 for like 8 months I gave up and tried one through my credit union in Denver. Put down $500 as collateral and paid $45 a month for 12 months. My score jumped 32 points after just 6 months of on time payments. Turns out adding a mix of installment loans actually helped my credit mix like people said. Has anyone else here gotten a real boost from these or was it just me?

Appreciation post: My $35 credit monitoring subscription saved me from a $600 mistake

I signed up for a cheap credit monitoring service last month because I was paranoid after a data breach. It caught a fraudulent account opening in my name within 3 hours, and I froze my credit before the guy could spend anything. Has anyone else had a monitoring service actually pay for itself like that?

Just realized my credit score bumped 40 points after I paid off my car loan early last spring

I was checking my credit karma account on a whim Tuesday night and saw it jumped from 680 to 720. Turns out paying off that 2018 Honda Civic loan five months early dropped my utilization way down and added a positive closed account to my history. Has anyone else seen a surprise jump from paying off a single loan like that?

Hit 750 on my credit score and everyone says congrats but I don't get the hype

I worked 2 years to get my score from 620 to 750. Paid off a $3,800 collection from a medical bill and kept my credit card usage under 10%. Everyone in these forums acts like 750 is some magic number but I applied for a car loan last month and still got a 7.2% rate. My friend has a 680 and got 6.8% from the same bank. So what's the point of grinding for that extra 70 points if lenders don't even reward it fairly? Has anyone else noticed the system feels rigged past a certain point?

Rant: My credit card company just raised my rate without telling me

I got my statement last week and noticed my APR jumped from 18% to 24% on a card I've had for 7 years. No late payments, no missed due dates, nothing wrong on my end. I called them up and they said it was because of a change in my credit report - but when I checked, my score actually went up 12 points. They couldn't even explain it to me clearly. I'm thinking about transferring my balance to a new card with a lower rate. Has anyone else had a big rate hike like this out of nowhere?

Old way vs new way: how I check my credit reports now

I used to just glance at my Credit Karma score once a month and call it good. Then last April I found a $300 collection from a doctor visit I never knew about. Now I actually pull all three reports from AnnualCreditReport.com every 4 months and read every line. Has anyone else caught errors that way that Credit Karma totally missed?

Been doing credit repair the hard way for years, just learned something obvious

I used to just pay off collections in full thinking it would help my score, but my buddy who's a loan officer told me pay-for-delete agreements are way better if you can get them in writing. He showed me how asking for removal instead of just paying dropped his buddy's score by 40 points in the wrong direction 'cause the account stayed. Has anyone else had luck getting a creditor to actually agree to delete after payment?

Swapped my credit card strategy 6 months ago and saw 40 points jump

I used to just pay the minimum on my one card and hope for the best. Then my buddy who runs a small accounting firm told me to pay off the balance before the statement date, not after. So now I set a reminder on my phone for the 20th of every month and pay the full amount I owe as of that day. That little trick dropped my credit utilization from 65% down to under 10% because the card company reports what's on the statement. I saw my score go from 620 to 660 over about 6 months just from that one change. Did anyone else have a similar jump just from timing your payments different?

Vent: That one old collection account from 2014 took 8 months to get removed

I had this medical bill from a visit to a clinic in Phoenix back in 2014 that turned into a collection. I swear I paid it off in 2015 but it still showed up as a negative on my credit report. It took me 8 months of sending letters back and forth and even a dispute through Experian to finally get them to verify it was a mistake. The whole time my score was stuck around 640 and I could have gotten a better rate on my car loan if I had caught it sooner. Has anyone else had a collection hang around way longer than it was supposed to?