inquisitive40

She was late for a time when I was not working (about 4 - 5 reported lates), now for the last 6 months or so we have gone over to direct debit from our account and so all payments have been on time etc.
We currently are waiting for a reply from Chase Credit card, I am doubtful about approval BUT we will wait and see. I approved, then I hopefully could be added, if so then this would establish credit for me? Correct?

Patrick

fatbrit

Yes, wait and see. If she's approved, see if they can add you as a "joint account user" rather than an additional user. You need to phone to ask for this.

inquisitive40

Well to finish off this thread, we went and bought a second car, the dealership did a pretty decent deal and so my wife and I are both on the loan and we got a reasonable rate on the loan. So now I suppose it will be a case of sitting back and waiting for my credit to build. We needed the car and so even though we may be paying slightly over the odds on the interest rate we have a car and also are building credit. On the loan they actually asked for a reason for myself having no credit history (for the loan document) and I showed them my PR card and the dates etc.
They also showed that I am coming up on th credit bureaus as a valid SSN and so that is already showing in the system.

Patrick

austin_d_powers

Your FICO score is affected by the percentage of available credit used.
i.e. if you have $10,000 total credit line and use $9,000 (90%) then your FICO score goes down.
However, I believe anything 50% or below is concidered good for your FICO score.
This obviously applies to long term outstanding balances.
I am not sure how short term high percentage usage, or paying off full balance every month comes into play with FICO.

Elvira

I'm not sure whether this only applies to long-term balances. When we applied for our mortgage, our credit report included references to 'high balance in relation to total credit limit' (or words to that effect). At the time our credit limits were fairly low as we were recent arrivals, so we would pretty much max out our cards each month. But even though we paid of all cards in full each month, it seemed to have affected our credit score.

The score was still pretty good, though, because this was our only black mark (other than the short credit history), so we had no trouble getting a mortgage.

BritGuyTN

I feel I need to make a point about Bank of America secured card

Unless you have a green card at the end of your 'trial' period they will not make it unsecured - its their policy, which i found out recently to my chagrin

however, you can obviously use the history gained from them to get something better like citibank/chase/AMEX

Elvira

This has not been our experience! We got both our BoA cards converted to unsecured after 1 year - and our GC is still a loooooooooooong way off.

BritGuyTN

well, either they didn't ask you whether you were a greencard holder/USC or you lied when they asked

i spoke with more than 10 individual reps within the credit card department when 12 months came up

and despite being in what I would assume to be in a favourable demographic for a customer and have no lates or over limits and a FICO of about 730 they said sorry - company policy. No unsecured cards to non-green card holders/USC's

Now if I applied on line right now and didn;t tell them, I'm 99% sure that I would be instantly approved

fatbrit

Looks like their loss! Wouldn't lose sleep over it. Go open a proper card with someone else. Problem is if you shut your BoA card, it'll lower your score a bit.

BritGuyTN

Yeah - I shut it, probably lost a few points in terms of history, but my other cards have had some big CLI's recently for no apparent reason, so the loss is probably couterbalanced by my lower utilisation

I would rather have the $500 back now I have other credit cards which didn't have annoyingly small credit limits

its funny - although some people in financial organisations would have you believe that it rakes a long time for scores to change, its complete nonsense - for example, if you have a high utilisation and you pay it off all at once your FICO will shoot up when the lender reports to the CRA's

fatbrit

Yup -- the biggest affect on your credit from closing the account will be on the age of your oldest lines -- presumably it knocked a year or so off. I too used $500 on a BoA to start ours, but closed it not because they were unable to unsecure it (though we had GCs from arrival) but because they wouldn't increase the credit limit! At that time, our other card US had at least 10x the amount on it! Dinged the score a touch, but eff 'em!

You're right about the volatility of the FICO score -- it changes every time something else posts from your accounts to the bureaus. However, it won't immediately shoot up. On, for example, 1 years, history of 20% use, and then sudden max utilization of credit limit, it seems to take 3 to 6 months to recover to the previous value. With longer history, the changes become less sudden, though.

englishnurse

we are moving to the usa in december, our credit rating over here has been less than perfect of the years! although we will have at least 20% to put down as a mortgage deposit. does anyone know if our 'bad' english rating will affect things when we move to the usa?

inquisitive40

People here in the US often quote "bad credit is better than no credit". Mortgages are a little different BUT you have a chance of being penalised with a higher interest rate if you have no credit/bad credit.

Patrick

fatbrit

Not unless you tell them over here, i.e. they can't access your UK history. Your deposit should be enough to secure a mortgage, don't forget to shop around. A mortgage is the easiest credit to obtain -- it's not like you can run away with the security, is it?

Time for a fresh start? Your credit score is very important in the US. It not only determines the rate at which you can borrow money but also whether you will need to pay deposits for services, your insurance costs, and even your employability.

englishnurse

fresh start is definatley the phrase of the day! we are really looking forward to being able to leave past mistakes behind and start anew! i already have a job, house is on the market, just waiting for the paperwork now the poor ols nhs is falling apart slowly over here, hence the final push to the usa! thanks for the advice very much neede i can assure you!