I've always wanted to joing a CU cause I love the "not for profit" idea pulling down rates. Everyone here raves about PenFed so I opened with $35. Applied for the Promise card with much hesitation. (Edited to add. I applied last night, Sat night, at 11pm!)
Underwhelming approval at $1000 @ 17.99%. Well, hey this is better than any other CC % I have but most of my limits are around 1800-2000.
Eventually I was hoping to get a personal loan/ PLOC from them. It would be a huge boon as I am self-employed, would help stabilize a month or two when flow gets awry.
I think the income statement screen may not have helped because I am self-employed and they approved me for much less than the income I entered would dictate I can handle (according to common sense anyway).
My goals were to 'get a break' with lower interest where I could consolodate / transfer balances and raise my score by freeing up credit due, having a lower overall utilization. So guess that's not going to happen and this is just another card.
But I guess another positive, is everyone speaks so highly about PenFed maybe in time they will trust me enough for a 5-10k personal loan (also need a used car loan).
Another supposed positive seen from the boards here is that they hopefully only pulled once. Any advice on getting them to view me favorably is appreciated. I think I should have waited until I paid down my util from 30% to 10%.
So, it doesn't look like they thought I was too great of a candidate just yet.
Any advice on how to treat this account would be appreciated, I want to win them over, I love the idea of the CU concept and they have already offered a decent rate (although not as low as my CapOne pre-approved, no income verifcation needed, on a car loan - 22k @ 9%, 60 mos). CapOne loves me. I do want to build a relationship with this company.
Right now I have general Fico 8: Eq 657 / TU 644 / Exp 658 ....
For CC Lending: Bankcard score 8 - 370 / Fico 3 - 625 / Bankcard Score 2 - 607
Bankcard Score 9: 624
I have 4 INQ on TU and barely any on my other accounts.
Any advice or experience is appreciated! I am more than halfway pleased, please don't take my tone as negative, just seeing the realities =)
Does investing in their financial products also help get approved (question for down the line).
Thank you for reading all of this!