I signed up for an American Express preferred Blue card and got approved for a limit of $25,000. I have a 830 credit score. I realized that the places I shop don’t accept that card and you have to pay for it yearly so I canceled it.
Then I decided I was going to get a Costco Visa. Once I signed up the credit limit was only $5,000. So I canceled that one. So I stupidly signed up for a Wells Fargo Visa and that was $4,000.
Don’t leave yet and please don’t make fun of me but I’m not done being stupid. I decided I wanted a different American Express card and when I signed up for it the credit limit was $2,000 so I canceled that one.
Again I know I’m fucking stupid but how bad did I just fuck up my credit?
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find one that has no fees. pay it off every month. it doesn’t matter what your credit limit is
How much limit do you need exactly? Also, why did you sign up for AmEx?
Also, why twice?
Lmao, I just realized OP signed up for AmEx again, knowing their store doesn’t accept it
Because I talked to my wife and decided it wasn’t that big of a deal and made rash decisions based on the fact that I was sick of dealing with it. Everyone here is so smart and never made any mistakes before, so it’s hard to explain to them why I did it.
Dawg, you can’t make a post talking about how dumb you are, include an anecdote that demonstrates how dumb you are, and then get defensive when people call you dumb lol.
Also, if you actually want productive help, you probably need a financial literacy class and a financial advisor, not a post on Lemmy.
I can call myself dumb. When someone else does it and confirms it, it fucking sucks. I’m already having a hard time convincing myself not to shoot myself in the head.
No one hates me like me. I don’t need your help.
If it makes you feel better: you’re not drowning in debt because of this, the worst permanent damage you’d cause is occasional random feelings of embarasment. I’d wanna shoot myself too when that embarasing memories pop up, but life goes on.
Honestly man, why are you even posting this? This is like airing your own dirty laundry on the street. Meanwhile, you could’ve quickly lookup how closing your credit card affects your credit score, or maybe ask somebody IRL.
25k is my other card. I rack up monthly debt and then pay it off and earn thousands in credit card rewards
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I’m Chidi Anagonye, or maybe I’m not?
Does your stomach hurt?
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Plus it’ll go back up to where it was in a few months.
And you only need a credit score if you’re applying for credit. Are you financing a major purchase in the near future? If not, your credit score is literally meaningless.
No Financing. House is paid off I have like 200k in stocks and savings.
house
Lemmy assemble. let’s eat this rich guy
Let me tell you why I’m so lucky. In early 2013 I bought a 1946 Bungalow at 1400 sq with no basement for $51,900 on a 15 year loan. I paid it off. Last year, my father-in-law died and left his house to his only daughter, my wife. It had an outstanding mortgage of $60,000 left on it. It’s a 2100 sq ft colonial with attached garage and basement. I sold my house for $220,000 and moved into my wife’s childhood home. We paid off the remaining loan.
I am fortunate and got lucky on the housing market. I make $68,000 a year. My wife took the year off, but is a teacher. We are NOT rich, but very lucky. I live near Detroit, where the cost of living is lower and that helps too.
Don’t worry, I am pretty sure it was a joke. But if someone is buying up property for the sole reason of renting then we will be picking up the pitchforks.
Edit: On a unrelated note, I would be more careful about sharing my wealth and salary details to a digit on social media. You can never know when it might backfire in future.
I edited it. Thank for the tip.
Amazing! Good for you. People shouldn’t attack the few people that get lucky. ❤️
It’s at 822 now. RIP in peace credit
Why do you care?
Because it matters
No it doesn’t. I’ve been a legal adult for almost 20 years now and not once have I ever needed to use my credit for anything. I don’t even know what my credit score is because I don’t give a single fuck about my credit. If I can’t afford to buy something, I save up enough money until I can. It’s that simple.
You don’t need a credit card with a $25K limit. You don’t need a credit card at all.
Like I said earlier, quit whining and take your meds.
Why does it matter?
That’s not a bad credit score at all.
I was worried it would tank though.
I’m not American, but surely going down 8 points isn’t that bad, right?
It’s down 27 points now and likely to go down a bit more. It’s not not BAD though.
You probably dipped your score a bit since any “hard” credit checks will ding your score, especially a lot in a short period of time.
If you really want to spend lots of money to reap the rewards from the credit cards, you can prepay them, so that your balance will be negative. You’ll also be seen as having “low revolving utilization.”
The downside is you need the money upfront of course, money that could’ve been being invested.
Just cancel that Amex card and get another one, but before you get too comfy with it, consider cancelling it and getting another one.
Talk about a life lesson. Credit cards shouldn’t be a willy nilly oh this one sounds fun. They should take research, making sure it’s what you want.
Also, finding out the card isn’t used anywhere and canceling it shouldn’t count against your credit score.
Credit scores at total bullshit in the first place.
Credit scores at total bullshit in the first place.
Credit scores are mostly fine. They do only one thing. They provide a good measure of how likely you are to pay back a loan. Thats it.
What other companies decide a credit score means and how they use that is bullshit.
Costco only accepts Visa and I didn’t know until after. I’m an idiot.
Their main issue is all of the sudden hard pulls for new accounts. Each one hits your credit for something like 30 points. I expect doing that over and over rapidly increases that ding each time. They dont want to loan you money if you are desperate for money, so they hit your score if you ask for too much too fast.
Their second issue, credit utilization, i.e how much credit you have that’s not in use, is affected each time they cancel a card. That’s hitting their credit as well, as each canceled card closed reduces their total unused credit percentage.
Between the two, i wouldn’t be suprised if that 830 is 600 right now. The good news for OP is that the new credit dings wear off fast. If they just stop opening credit cards, their credit will be in the 800s again in a few weeks.
They dont want to loan you money if you are desperate for money, so they hit your score if you ask for too much too fast.
Credit score is ‘who can we fleece for the most money’ so that checks out.
100%. It’s a coordinated judgement about who they can get to reliably make them a profit. “Pays the bills on time” is the biggest factor in your credit score.
If you look at each of them (payment history, how much credit is open and not used, how long has the credit been open, how often have they asked for more credit recently, how many types of credit do they have i.e house/car/cc) they all have to do with figuring out if you will pay them.
If the answer is yes, they will give you a giant whirlpool to spend. Once you have it you will likely make them a profit, because almost everyone does. Credit scores are just a way to tell if it’s worth hooking you on “easy” money for them.
It’s credit, a loan, and I’d say this is actually great example of why it’s useful. OP showed one after the other how likely they are to take out credit. Like it or not OPs behavior is a warning sign
Warning sign of what?
That you don’t know enough about credit. Or fraud.
I can agree to that.
My cycle is:
- Get new 2% back on everything card
- Card changes rewards so it is no longer a 2% back on everything card
- Repeat
You don’t know the limit until you sign up
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a credit card shouldn’t be about the limit at all. Even with a big project you could have just done it in parts or only done on part on the card. You should never take out cards for a higher limit.
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you could have just called and asked for a limit raise.
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When I lived in the US (before the subprime crash), my neighbors used their dog’s name to sign up for all kinds of free lotteries on the internet.
One day, they were sent a pre-approved credit card with their dog’s name on it.
I have a chase sapphire reserve (visa) that has a credit limit of $24,000. I don’t understand why you keep picking cards with low credit limits. Do your research first then apply. Plus credit limits are based on your history with the bank and your annual income. If you have a low income, then they won’t approve a large credit limit.
Also do you not read the sign on the stores you shop at? Pretty sure they advertise which card network they accept.
You can also literally call customer service and ask for the stipulations for an increase.
Credit cards are not your clothes.
I know. That’s why I said I’m stupid. I’m beating myself up enough. I know I’m fucking stupid and don’t deserve what I have. I don’t need some internet jerk to tell me how fucking stupid I am so they can feel good about themselves. Thanks, though.
Damn, now you made a stupid comment too. Time to retract and reflect.
You’re being a jerk.
Exactly what you wanted
No. I specifically said what I did was stupid and asked you NOT to be a jerk.
Brother, you need this
I’m a piece of shit. I get it.
Hard inquiries stay on your report for 2 years but stop impacting your credit after a year
It’s not a huge deal unless you’re planning to buy a car or a house or something relatively soon
You can dispute them but they were all legitimate so you might as well just wait, it’s not that long. Your score was excellent so unless you incur a ton of debt It shouldnt go down all that much. And again, unless you’re planning to do something that is contingent on your credit within the next year or two it doesnt really matter
That’s reassuring. Thank you
For what in the hell does anyone use a credit card, like ever?
Literally every purchase. Use it like a debit card and build a good credit report before you’re even 30. Shit my credit score was over 800 before I turned 21. My credit wasn’t very thick. But what I had was solid.
Plus every card I have gives me cash back so it’s like getting 1-5% off every single purchase. Plus since I buy things for work and get reimbursed for it I’m effectively making money off of it.
I’m 44yo with A+ credit and have never used a credit card in my life.
Define “A+”
Credit is about length and girth in addition to their scores. By 40 you’d better have an “A+” score. If you’ve had a mortgage for 20 years, paid your bills on time, and had a couple car loans then anything under 800 would be hard to get.
Sounds like you agree with me that a credit card is not remotely necessary for building good credit.
As long as you pay it off every month it should be the way you pay for everything. It builds your credit score and is more secure. With a credit card you’re spending their money, so if your card gets stolen you won’t be on the hook for everything. Vs a debit card you’re spending your money, it is much harder to do fraud from the consumer side with a debit card. Plus perks .
I understand if you’re bad with credit, but if you’re not, why wouldn’t you use one?
Compared to a debit card, it adds an additional layer between my money and the rest of the world. If my card is wrongly charged, by malice or honest accident, I then have some weeks to sort that out before the money is actually going to be pulled from my bank account. That’s why I prefer to pay by credit card instead of by debit card.
Cash back rewards cards work well, I end up with at least 2% - 5% cash back on all my shopping.
The key is to treat credit cards like cash e.g. pay your bill in full every month, never ever carry a balance. It doesn’t work for everyone and that’s okay, some people just can’t help themselves and get too spendy and end up in debt.
Other nice thing is that fraud is handled better with credit cards, if my card is lost/stolen no one has a direct line to my bank account and can’t try to drain my bank balance with debit purchases. Sure your bank may/may not void those transactions but in the time it takes for them to “investigate” you’re going to be out real money in your bank account. With a credit card you just dispute those fraud charges and never actually pay for them.
To build credit 🙃
And building credit is useful to set yourself up for future purchases - a condo/house, car, whatever. The whatever here is bigger than it semese, as having a decent credit score can let you finance all kinds of things at a pretty low rate, if not 0% even today. If you’re saving any extra money in an investment/retirement account, and can pay off your 0% financing offers in full by the time you would start to owe interest, financing at 0% is a great deal even if you have the cash on hand to pay outright.
Yeah, I don’t necessarily agree with the game, but since we’re in it, I play it. All of my purchases go on credit cards. But I never spend money I don’t have, and I pay the statement balance in full every month so I’m never charged interest. The only time I don’t pay the full statement balance is when I buy a new phone since I have the store card with 0% financing. But anything else, never ever ever carry a balance.
It sucks because it’s basically a benefit for people who have good executive functioning and financial literacy, paid for by those who don’t. It’s a benefit I only get because big banks prey on poor people.
I have A+ credit and have never possessed a credit card.
What is A+ credit?
It’s what the guy at the bank told me each time I bought a car or a house.
Debit cards have all the same functionality as far as I can tell, and you don’t need to worry about building up debt at predatory interest rates.
You just tanked your credit score by a lot. There are two aspects about this that matter:
Each one of those approvals required the credit card companies to pull your credit score from the major credit reporting agencies, and a lot of credit inquiries very close together will cause your score to go down. This is not so bad, as those will only weigh on you temporarily.
The worse one, however, is account age. Opening so many lines of credit has lowered your average account age by a ton, as you now have many accounts on your credit history with 0 years, so you are going to see a big drop because a lot of what makes up for a good credit score is how long you’ve maintained good credit (which means using it and paying it off on time to prove you can actually handle being lent money) and how much credit diversity you have (mortgage, auto loan, credit cards, etc.) .
The good thing is that both of these blunders will go away with time. How long it will take to get you back up to 830, well, I can’t quite say.
Like, this isn’t as bad as a bankruptcy is for your credit score, don’t get me wrong, but you’re going to need to start reading the fine print on these very carefully moving forward, because you can’t afford to keep signing deals for credit cards and not knowing exactly what the terms are. If you didn’t know what the credit limit was up front, you probably weren’t paying attention to things like APR either and that makes a big difference. Why did you feel the need to get a new credit card anyway? It sounds like you had no issues building credit before.
It’s at 822 now.
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You most likely have a number of credit inquiries on your account now. The bad news is that it hurts your credit score. The good news is that they go away over the course of a few years to five years. I’d do a lot of research before getting another card. Get a basic one. I use mine for modest purchases like groceries. Credit cards also benefit from purchase protection, and serious tradeoffs like Rewards, which come from transaction fees (which in turn tend to raise prices on all goods that accept credit cards. There’s no such thing as a free lunch).
You shouldn’t be maxing your credit anyways, so 5k should be fine. Pay it off every month, the interest rate is insanely high if you fall behind. It’s better to get a loan from a bank for massive purchases.
Ps- I wouldn’t get a card that has annual charges, unless you are doing like, a shitload of foreign transactions whose transaction fees exceed the cost of the annual CC fee. Usually this doesn’t pencil out unless you are Canadian and there’s an American Costco a 25 minute drive from your place near the border.
I work in the credit card space for a living. DM me if you actually want to chat about how to fix your situation.
Why not share with the class?
Because they’re gonna need OP’s social security number and credit card info in order to look into what can be done to help.
Also their mother’s maiden name and the names of their childhood best friend and 1st pet.
Remember OP, when you get scammed, call them back and ask nicely so they can refund you onto a different card number since that first one is toast.
I assumed they wouldn’t want to look more stupid in public tbh.
gfy
No way Jose
Regardless of how everyone took my message I was being genuine, I hope you get the help you need. The advice in this thread is not great, and I hope you seek a professional outside of this platform for some actual assistance.
I didn’t really need much help. I’m all set for the most part. I didn’t have any financing coming up in the near future, so I think I’ll be ok
I never got what it is with Americans and their credit cards. Why does one need several and what’s up with those credit limits? If you’re buying on credit it by defintion means you can’t afford it and thus shouldn’t buy it. I do have a credit card as well but the only thing I use the credit side for is online purchases for security reasons. Everything else is charged directly from my bank account.
I’m extremely anti-credit. But, there are things that require you have some kind of credit score— like renting an apartment. When I was in Los Angeles, I was actually rejected from signing a lease because I had no credit. Not bad credit. None at all, which they said was actually worse, somehow.
There are a couple of benefits to credit cards (in the US at least).
- Protection: If some steals my credit card info, I can fight the charges with the credit card company (and am not out any money while sorting it out) . With debit cards the money is gone and you’re fighting to get it back.
- Rewards: most offer good cash back or point rewards. It means I save 2-3% on average compared to using a debit card
- Persk: Many cards will add coverage for car rentals or discounts just for using them for the purchase.
If you pay off the card each month you get all of those persk at zero cost. While technically credit card companies charge stores 2-3% for each swipe, in the US at least there is no price difference for the customer for cash/debit/credit.
Edit/TLDR: In the US it’s cheaper and safer to use a credit card (if you can pay the balance every month).
Thanks for the help!
If you’re buying on credit it by defintion means you can’t afford it and thus shouldn’t buy it.
Buying it on credit doesn’t mean that that’s the only way you could buy it. I buy everything on credit, and I’ve paid about $50 total in interest in 10 years of doing so, a number far outweighed by the hundreds of dollars of rewards I’ve redeemed.
Now, obviously the bank wouldn’t let me do this if not for the fact that people as a whole pay more in interest than they redeem in rewards, but that doesn’t mean that any given individual does.
Credit cards = Free Money
1-5% cash back at most stores
So you can either pay in cash (or debit card) and get nothing. Or you can use a credit card and get 1-5% cash back
I need to spend $300 on groceries this month. If i had a credit card that did 5% on grocery purchases (one reason for multiple cards), then I’d have an extra 15 dollars this month. 180 dollars a year just because I used a credit card for a purchase I had to make.
I could have used my debit card, and the funds could be pulled directly from my checking account. Or the funds will be pulled directly from my checking account at the end of the month when I need to pay off my balance.
If I had an emergency $300 dollar expense in the middle of the month, I would have access to $300. If i purchased the groceries with the $300 in my checking account, I’d have no funds to hold over for 2 weeks. Longer if needed, a credit card can hold a balance for a price.
There really isn’t a reason why you shouldn’t use a credit card in America, other than poor spending habits
Credit cards can even give you perks like free cell phone accident protection when paying your wireless bill
Have multiple cards with multiple limits = higher available debt
The higher your available debt, the less percent you use out of it
Debt utilization is a big part of a credit score. And just getting that down having multiple high limit cards is a strategy.
Like if I spend 5k a month. One card with a 10k limit I am using 50% of my available credit. If i had 3 cards with 15k limits, I’d be using ~10%. Using 10%>50%
Opening up cards hurts your credit score in the short term but helps in the long run. You shouldn’t close a card unless you have to because having it is going to help your score for reasons mentioned above.
Debt utilization is a big part of a credit score. And just getting that down having multiple high limit cards is a strategy.
I have a really good credit utilization rate, in part because of this. I don’t spend money I don’t have, because I make enough money to cover my needs, set aside savings for emergencies, and treat myself sometimes. And I’m privileged to have people in my life who educated me about credit, what it actually means, and how it works.
Because of these privileges, using credit cards has saved me money by earning rewards and not paying interest. But many Americans don’t have these privileges, which is why I think it’s downright irresponsible and predatory that my combined credit limit is higher than my annual salary. Not home or car loans or whatever, just regular credit cards for regular consumer purchases. That’s a life-ruining amount of credit to have available if you haven’t been taught how to game the system.
I was thinking the same. The limit was only 5k? We live in very different worlds lol.
The only reason I want a limit that high is to be able to book a group holiday on it. (With people I trust to pay me back). So much less stressful (and lucrative if you have a rewards card)
