I know its generally not they type of thing discussed in the DD community, where everyone pays their bills on time , and even sometimes twice a month in order to achieve a better credit score. Nevertheless this may be interesting to some of the readers out there who have previously fallen on financial hard times and have not been able to pay their CC bills.
I had four accounts with Amex, two business and two personal. The highest was my Amex blue card with approx 10k balance, my starwood had 500$, my business starwood another 500, and finally a simply cash business card with 950$. I also had two cards with chase, and one with citi, which I did not settle and chose to stick with the minimum payments. ( chase and citi only added up to 1,500)
My timelines are approximate and from my memory.
4. 4 years ago stopped paying.
3. settled about 3 years ago
2. had OASIS card for 1 year
1. put myself as wife's au for plat for a year
Presently: got approved for starwood business 5k cc limit.
About 5 years ago when the financial crisis started I had a 50k credit line with amex so 10k on a low interest rate didnt bother me that much. Suddenly they cut me down to 10k leaving my credit utilization at 100%, this caused all my other CC to be cut as well, following that most of the cards int rates where raised to 28%. (this practice has since been made illegal for past purchases, but only for personal not business cards).
Suddenly I couldn't afford even the minimum monthly payments on the amex. After about 1 year of scraping together for the monthly payments I gave up and stopped paying.
I left it like that for about a year , at which point I was in much better financial shape. Since my credit was messed up with amex anyway I figured there was no point in giving them the full amount. I settled all the cards for 30 cents on the dollar, saving myself about 7.5k. The only exception was the last card, the simply cash business card with 950 balance. With this card I had gotten a letter saying that if I paid the full amount they would give me the OASIS card with 500 credit line. I figured it was worth the extra investment for the chance to get back with amex.
Just a few months after settlement with amex, I started getting approved for chase cards ( I bank with them and have a little "pull" with chase) Still, I would usually have to go to recon to get a card approved, they always ask about the amex settlements, I tell them that amex had agreed to drop the "fees", and that's why it showed accounts as settled, but really I payed the full balance. I always pointed out that even amex didnt consider me a credit risk as I still had open account with them. (the oasis card) I now have about 40 k credit with chase, with very low utilization. At this point my experian"real" score is 680.
Finally, two weeks ago I applied for the starwood business card (30k signup bonus) I used a real corporate id number, but they still ask for the "business owners" social. I had no choice I gave my social. application was not instantly approved, I didn't even bother calling recon.
Imagine my surprise when a week later the card arrived in the mail! I checked and see that they did run a credit check on my personal experian. When I called up to create an online profile my old profile showed up, showing that I still owed those previous balances! I chose to create a new profile, but it still says: member since 2005 ( my original join date).
How long do I wait to start churning?
