Credit Card Application

Manshu Verma asked:




How does applying for a credit card hurt my credit score?

Every time you apply for a credit card, the credit card company makes an inquiry into your credit report. These are also known as hard pulls. Each of these credit inquiries or hard pulls, take away around 5 points from your credit score.

The rationale behind taking away points from your credit score when you apply for credit, is that, it is harder to control multiple lines of credit when compared to just a few. It also shows a tendency that leans towards getting excessive credit and then getting into a spending spiral, which may become difficult for you to get out of and as a result your chances of default become high.

These inquiries show on your credit report for a period of one to two years, but the dent in score itself will be rectified in about a couple of months, if you do not abuse your newly available credit.

If your credit application gets approved, then your score will rise fairly quickly because the additional line of credit will give you a boost. Along with this, your ‘debt is to available credit’ ratio will also improve and that will help boost your score too.

Be aware of the credit application spiral

The people who are worse hit are the people whose credit application gets rejected. When their application gets rejected, their score goes down. However, since their application has been rejected, they apply again thereby reducing their score further and chances are that they will get rejected once again. This is a vicious circle and if you get into this kind of thing four or five times, then your credit score takes a bigger hit.

So be careful, and next time you are tempted to apply for that store credit card that will give you $10 off on a new shirt, think twice!

Angela

Court Tuttle asked:


You are looking through your credit card application, knowing that every detail you are reading is important. After all, you’ve heard so many times how people got fooled by credit card companies because they neglected to read the fine print. So that’s what you are trying to do now, but it’s turning out to be completely impossible!

The first step in the right direction is that you have recognized that you need to understand what you are reading. Knowing the details about your credit card application, like what your interest rates will be, if there’s an expiration date on the introductory rate, if it is a rewards card, and knowing similar details will allow you to get the credit card you want with no surprises. But how can you possibly understand what kind of a deal you’re getting if you can’t even understand the words they’re using? Here are a few terms that are often used in credit card applications and what they are referring to.

Revolving credit, or open-end credit, refers to a credit card that will allow you to charge on it up to a certain limit. This is probably the kind of credit card you are applying for. This type of credit may be used repeatedly, even after you have paid off the balance.

A fixed rate is an interest rate that will not change over the time that you have a credit card account open. Fixed interest rates are good in many cases because you can predict how much you will be paying each month, rather than having to wait and see. Still, fixed rates are often higher than variable interest rates.

Variable interest rates are those that changes according to the economy. There is a limit, however, on how high and how low the interest rates can get. This helps because, though you do not know what exactly your interest rate will be for that month, you will know what range it will be in, and you may benefit from the times that it is lower than average.

Something you can do that will help you to better understand the terminology on your credit card application is, while you are reading it, mark things that you do not understand. This way, when you can get a representative from the credit card company on the phone, you can ask them about it. Be sure that you know what they’re talking about before you go on, instead of leaving it alone because they are having a difficult time explaining it to you.

One thing that you definitely should not do is throw the papers away once you have applied for the credit card. The terms and conditions will be what the company will refer to in the future when and if you ever challenge something they did. You need to know what those terms and conditions are, be able defend your rights concerning them, and refer also to the papers on which they are printed.



HERSCHEL

pretty_en_pink68 asked:


how come people send you pre approved credit card application and then deny you when you apply. If it’s not really pre approved then what does it mean when they say it’s pre approved??

KURTIS

teksonn asked:


I’m trying to fix bad credit so I applied for a credit card on line and when the bill for a $59.00 annual service fee arrived before the card, I decided that I didn’t want it. While I was going through all the pages of the on-line application there was one page that stated that I had thirty days to cancel, but the paperwork I got in the mail says nothing about this and to access this page on-line I would have to go through the process of applying for another card (not happening). Also, the paperwork that came with the card says that I have to call a phone number to activate the card before it can be used. QUESTION: Do I need to call or e-mail these people and tell them I don’t want the card anymore (it hasen’t been 30 days yet), or, if I just don’t activate the card does that mean the account has not been verified and so then it becomes null and void?

DALE

abcdefghijk asked:


I keep seeing people on campus offering free stuff like pizza, hats T-shirts bags etc for sining up. People sign up and then close the account when the card comes in the mail, or they just fake the application. Are there any negative consequences of doing this?

LEOPOLDO