c/credit-advice

Showerthought: My bank's fraud alert saved me $450 on a fake pizza order

Tbh, I was at a gas station in Akron last Tuesday buying snacks when my phone buzzed. The bank flagged a $450 charge from 'Pizza Palace' in Singapore. I laughed because I haven't eaten pizza in months. Called them up, got it reversed in 10 minutes. Anyone else have ridiculous fraud alerts that turned out to be real?

Thought the credit repair company was a scam until my score jumped 60 points

I signed up for one of those credit repair services back in March mostly to prove my buddy wrong who swore by them. They disputed a couple of old medical bills from 2018 that I had forgotten about, and after 3 months my FICO went from 592 to 652. I still think most of them are trash, but the one thing that actually worked was them finding a collections account that was past the statute of limitations in Arizona. Has anyone else had luck getting old debts removed without paying them?

Stop telling people to close old cards

I see it all the time in this sub. Someone posts about their 10 year old card with a $500 limit. People say close it. That's your oldest account. Closing it tanks your average age. It matters way more than the limit. Why do so many people think closing old cards is smart?

Hit 750 credit score today after 2 years of work

I opened my credit monitoring app this morning and saw 752, after being stuck at 680 forever. What number surprised you the most when you finally saw it?

Hit 740 credit score after 2 years of work

I was stuck at 620 for the longest time after some medical bills went to collections. Last month I checked Credit Karma and saw I finally crossed 740! It happened after I paid off my car loan early with an extra $200 in January. The big thing was calling the collection agency and negotiating a pay for delete on that old hospital bill. Has anyone else had luck getting old medical collections removed from their report?

Spent 14 months fixing a 3 year old credit mistake I made back in college

My credit score jumped 62 points in 4 months. Here's what I did differently.

I've been stuck around 680 for like two years. Started paying my cards down before the statement date instead of waiting for the due date. Also got a secured card from my local credit union in Portland. FICO score just hit 742. Anyone else see a boost just by changing their payment timing?

Shoutout to that credit union near my house for finally making it click

I kept watching friends pile up store credit cards for the 10% discount and then wonder why their scores tanked. Last month the teller at my credit union straight up told me those accounts can hurt you because the credit limits are tiny and hard to manage.

Hot take: paying off my smallest card first did nothing for my score

Everyone says to snowball your smallest debts first for motivation, but I paid off a $300 store card in February and my score went up maybe 5 points. Meanwhile a friend of mine paid down a chunk of a big card with a 90% utilization rate and jumped 40 points in the same period. Has anyone else seen better results from targeting high utilization instead of small balances?

Warning: That $40 credit monitoring service wasn't worth a dime

I signed up for one of those fancy credit monitoring plans last year thinking it would catch everything. Paid $40 a month for 8 months before a small collections account showed up on my report. The service never flagged it, I found it by accident checking my free annual report. Anyone else have a similar experience with paid monitoring vs just doing it yourself?

Had the best credit week ever last month - or maybe the worst? Tough call.

I paid off my last $500 on a store card and my VantageScore jumped 30 points, but then I opened a new card for the sign-up bonus and it dropped 15 points. So did I win or lose here? Who else is stuck in this weird cycle of fixing one thing and breaking another?

Caught my coworker saying he pays $30 a month for a secured card annual fee

Honestly I was just grabbing coffee in the break room and this guy from accounting was telling someone he pays $30 a year for a secured credit card. I asked him why not just get a free one from Discover or Capital One. He said he didn't know free secured cards existed. Ngl it made me wonder how many people are still paying fees on starter cards without realizing there are better options out there. Has anyone else run into grown adults not knowing about no-fee secured cards?

Overheard someone say credit cards are 'free money' and I had to bite my tongue

I was at a coffee shop in Phoenix last week and heard two guys talking about how they just max out their cards and pay the minimums because 'credit is just fake money anyway' (like it's some kind of hack). That attitude is exactly why I still use a secured card after two years, even though my score hit 720 last month. I had a buddy in 2019 who racked up $8,000 on a rewards card chasing points, then lost his job and spent three years paying off that debt with interest that almost doubled the bill. The thing is, if you treat credit like free money, it will eventually bite you in the form of high utilization and missed payments that tank your score way harder than you think. I'd rather keep my limit low and my payments on time than play games with limits I can't actually cover. Has anyone else run into people who seem to think paying 22% APR is just a normal cost of living? I'm trying to figure out if I'm being too cautious or if this is common sense.

Finally realized I was paying for credit monitoring I didn't need...

I signed up for a $29/month credit monitoring service about 2 years ago after a data breach scare. Last week I actually logged in to check my score and realized my bank's app gives me the same VantageScore and alerts for free. Called to cancel and they tried to sell me on their 'premium identity theft insurance' but I just kept saying no thanks. Has anyone else had that moment where you look at a subscription and wonder why you ever paid for it in the first place?

My credit monitoring service failed to alert me about a $15 late payment

Honestly, I thought I had autopay set up on my utility bill, but last month I missed a $15 payment by two days. My credit monitoring service, which I pay $20 a month for, didn't send me any alert until 3 weeks later when my score dropped 40 points. I called the utility company and they agreed to remove the late mark as a goodwill gesture since it was my first miss in 5 years. Has anyone else had a monitoring service fail to catch something small but important like that?

Spent 6 hours fighting a collections dispute over a $47 gym membership I canceled in 2021

Honestly I thought I canceled that Planet Fitness account properly but they kept billing me and sent it to collections over $47. It took me calling Experian three times and sending them proof of cancellation before it finally dropped off my report last week. How long do these things usually take you guys to get sorted out?

Learned the hard way that closing old credit cards drops your score

I closed a card I'd had for 8 years because I never used it and my score dropped 40 points. My bank's credit monitoring tool showed my average account age went from 7 years to 3 years instantly. Has anyone else messed up their utilization ratio this bad by accident?

The credit limit trap I see everyone falling for

Been watching friends and neighbors wreck their scores by maxing out cards they just got. It's like they think a $5,000 limit means they can spend $4,800 and pay it off later. I did the same thing back in 2021 when Chase gave me a $3,000 card. Bought a new mower deck for my business, put $2,200 on it, and my score dropped 40 points overnight. The problem is utilization hits you hard even if you pay the full balance each month. Your statement balance is what gets reported, not what you paid off. Best move I found is keeping each card under 30% usage, under 10% if you really want to see a jump. Has anyone else gotten burned by this before they realized how it worked?

Hit 800 FICO and nobody reacted, so here I am

So last week I checked Credit Karma and my score hit 800 exactly. I have been working on this for about 4 years now, paying down old debts and keeping cards low. I told my wife and she just said "okay" and went back to her phone. Felt like climbing a mountain only to find nobody at the top. Anyone else get a score that felt like a big deal but nobody around you cared?

My buddy at the coffee shop fixed my credit mess in 10 minutes

I was sitting at this little place in Austin last month stressing about my credit score. It was stuck at 620 and I could not figure out why. This guy named Mark who works the counter saw me looking at my credit report on my phone and just casually asked what was up. I told him about a medical bill from like 2019 that I thought was paid off. He said go check the actual date on the bill and call the hospital billing department directly. I did it that same day and turns out they had a $45 mistake on their end that was reporting me as late every month. After I got it fixed my score jumped 50 points. Has anyone else found random small billing errors messing up their score?

My credit score dropped 50 points because of a $0.38 balance I forgot about

I paid off my credit card entirely except for one tiny purchase I made at a gas station in Tulsa. That $0.38 carried over to the next statement and made my balance look like I was carrying debt. The bank reported it as a missed full payment and my score tanked. Took me three calls and a month to get them to fix it. Has anyone else gotten hit by these tiny interest or fee charges that mess up your utilization?

Picked the zero interest card over the cash back one and now I'm stuck with a $400 balance I can't pay off

I chose a 0% APR balance transfer over a 2% cash back card six months ago to save on interest, but since the 0% ended it jumped to 22% and I've barely made a dent on the $3,200 I moved over; anyone else regret skipping the rewards for a low rate?

That pre-paid card my buddy swore by turned out to actually help rebuild my score

I'll be honest, I thought secured cards were a total scam for years. My buddy Matt in Denver kept pushing one after he got his credit up from like 520. I finally tried it about 6 months ago with a $200 deposit. Put my Netflix and gas on it each month, paid it off in full every time. Just checked Credit Karma and I jumped 45 points. Still not where I want to be but I can't argue with those numbers. Has anyone else had a secured card actually work out for them?

I finally broke 700 after years of being stuck in the 600s

Upped my credit limit by $2k and my score actually went down at first

I asked Capital One for a $2,000 increase on my card last month, thinking it would help my utilization. Instead my score dropped 15 points for a few weeks before bouncing back higher than before. Anybody else get that weird temporary dip?