the credit chronicles, part i

it all started back in may when i got a “pre-approved” credit card application…

…and it wasn’t one of the usual ones.

i was telling the ufc the other day i felt like my credit worthiness was improving (even though my score has been declining steadily since may for some reason) because i’m starting to recognize the banks i’m getting offers from.

when your credit REALLY sucks you get card offers rarely, and they’re usually from banks that don’t feel right, like “NIGERIAN SAVINGS & LOAN” or something. then you graduate to the fake credit limit. the FCL is when you get an application for a pre-aprroved card, but the limit’s $300.

doesn’t sound that bad – until you read the fine print.

there’s a $50 application fee. and a $75 annual fee. and a $75 credit verification fee (that last one is them LITERALLY dinging your credit and making you pay for the “privilege”). so you get the card and it has a $300 limit, but already has $200 in fees applied to it. so you have access to $100…and you owe them $200 for the right to have it. pay them $200, and now you have $300.

it’s better than a secured card, where you front your own credit line, but not really, because the interest rate is typically calculated by taking the average of a mafia loan and a cartel loan and then adding three points for fun.

i got the card i started with because at this point all the bad shit associated with my six months of unemployment is off my credit, so a revolving line of credit can help build your score up. the one i got DID have about $150 in fees to start it up, but it had the option of looking like carbon fiber (yes, that was actually a selling point) and it came with a $750 limit that doubles in december. while my score is still in the shitter, it did lead to an actual offer with zero fees from capital one, and that scored me a second card and a second credit line.

you know you’re “adulting” when you’re more concerned about you score on your credit karma app than any game you’ve downloaded onto your phone!

the weird thing is now capital one won’t STOP sending me pre-approved offers…for the same card i already have. not sure what that’s all about, but i’ll be interested to see how improving out mortgage situation helps it since that’s the really big ding on my report, but we’ll get into that later…

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