meauxna

What merchant accepts VISA but not MasterCard? (they are usually combined in merchant services)
That is a new one on me.

chicagojlo

Same here. Although I recall IKEA in Holland only took Visas and not Mastercards. Something to do with processing fees being different.

Watch out with the reloadable cards - they have a lot of fees if you don't pay attention.

augigi

Limit in Aus was $6000 as I just wanted to build up credit - only put about $100/month on there for 9 months before getting to the US and paid off in full each month.

Meauxna, I was looking for something for my mum and the place with the cheapest price only accepted visa - I gathered it must be due to processing fees... maybe they have an agreement with visa? Dunno - I haven't seen it before either.

evoal2003

Having a good score is one thing but you also need history and comparable credit to back it up.

It all takes time. One step at a time.

SixString

yep, building up credit is sooooooooo very important here.
Key things: Don't apply for too many credit cards all at once.
If you get turned down by too many, it will show up on your credit reports and you'll take a hit there.
Don't get in massive debt. It's the fastest way to ruin yourself financially. Credit is good, but don't give in to temptation to use it. You'll regret it.

What i did to build up my credit scores (which are now all above 720) is to open several lines of credit and then keep them active by using them once every 6 months or so, with small stuff and then pay the cards off immediately. When you're not using them, just place the CC's somewhere safe in your house, not in your wallet. Keep the lines open, as the more "available credit" you have, the faster your scores will improve. (just don't have tons of CC's, get other lines, such as car loans (if you can afford), mortgage, etc, etc.

Oh and NEVER pay late. Always pay up before your time to make a payment is due. Late payments negatively impact your scores. I've never had a late payment.

I started out with nothing. Built my history up with time and now it's paying off. I've never been refused credit so far.

chicagojlo

Never been refused credit and never paid late. The one thing I insist on is paying on time. The problem with running up the debt to start with was that we only had one salary while I was waiting for my EAD, and we still had our apartment back in Amsterdam to pay for until it was sold. We didn't get much in the way of relocation assistance so new stuff had to be bought on credit. My husband also insisted he needed Lasik!
Now I have Scorewatch from Equifax which alerts me any time my score changes. That has been helpful as it also gives an explanation for the change.

Dan725

That is bang on. A lot of fairly newly arrived people on here get carried away with how fast their score is going up (I did the same), only to find that when you apply for some meaningful credit (car loan, etc), while you can still get the credit with a good score alone, it won't be at the rate you think you should have for your score. Reason being that you have little history. Time and multiple credit lines in good standing are what you need.

chicagojlo

I also notice that my score changes (up and down) as my credit issuers report on my accounts which they do on a quarterly basis.

Longy

Yes its all done with some wacky formula which means things that anybody would expect to improve your score (paying down an installment loan for example) has no affect whatsoever. On the other hand small to moderate use of credit cards once every few months can sometime have a large affect on your score. Earlier this year I put about $100 on each of my 3 credit cards - after the first two reported on the same day my score went up by 39 points - then the 3rd one reported a few days later and my score dropped by 12 points. Then only a couple of months ago, my missus credit went up a load of points when somebody ran an enquiry.

You can't really make sense of the ups and downs of it all, but with responsible use over the long term it will generally go up.