I always hate trying to find the links to obtain your free credit report when you have been denied credit, so I am posting them here for everyone:
Personally, I never have any problem getting mine from Experian or TransUnion. Equifax, however, always redirects me to requesting my report by mail.
If you are on the road to credit repair, you know how important it is to add new positive accounts. Doing so, however, will start racking up the inquiries on your report pretty quickly.
You will come across references to bumpage or the B* or b* used to reference it without spelling out the word and alerting the credit reporting agencies! Haha. If you can’t tell, that’s some major sarcasm!
So as far as “bumping” inquiries off of your credit report: (1) there is no way to get inquiries bumped off of Experian – the inquiries you have on that one will remain there unless you can get them removed some other way; (2) Bumping inquiries off Equifax is possible – I have done it a few years back, but my recent attempts were unsuccessful, presumably due to Choppage or C*; and (3) TransUnion is pretty easy to do and doesn’t take that long. I am going to tell you an easy way to eliminate your TransUnion inquiries.
What do you need?
You are going to need a triple-daily puller. For those who don’t know what that is: it is a subscription to a site that allows you to pull/update your credit report and score every day. There are not a lot of these left anymore – and you need at least two triple daily pullers. I used USAA and MPM – the USAA membership and My Privacy Matters:
Since you are bumping TransUnion, you can get your results faster by pulling through other TransUnion-based sites:
So this could cost you over $50 per month. Every day, after 24 hours has passed since pulling the day before, make sure you pull your credit report and refresh score through each site. If you are diligent with doing this, you should see at least a few of the inquiries, if not all of them, gone within a month.
Questions?
I am not usually an advocate of store cards. Why use a store card for something you can use a major credit card for, which will likely have a lower interest rate and possibly offer you airline miles or some other benefit? Besides, store cards can be just another bill you have to deal with every month. Yeah they may offer you some coupons every month, but they rarely come with interest rates below 24%, so how much would you really be saving?
For someone working to build new credit, store cards can potentially be a major help. Most store cards are issued by one of two major banks: Comenity Bank and GE Merchants Bank/GE Capital Retail Bank (GEMB/GECRB). Opponents of store cards and using them to rebuild credit will often cite the adding of inquiries to your credit report for each store card. Well, with Comenity Bank, one can use the “shopping bag trick” to get approval with just a soft inquiry – I just did it a few months ago and got an Express card. With regard to GEMB/GECRB, they will pull your TransUnion credit report and score – and for the most part, if you get approved for one GEMB card, you will get approved for any of them. TransUnion inquiries are the easiest to bump off, so my approach was (1) pick whatever GEMB cards I wanted and apply for them all same day then (2) bump all the inquires off TransUnion within the next month. I started with the WalMart card, then got the Banana Republic, Amazon, Belk and Chevron cards. After four months of good payment history on your GEMB-issued card, you will get a credit limit increase.
Just because you have the store cards does not mean you need to use them. Most of mine I have used one time, paid the entire balance off, and then just left it alone. It will add positive, active tradelines to your credit file and increase your total revolving credit amount, making any balances you may carry on your major credit cards have less impact on your credit score. When I began my credit repair in December, 2013, I had ZERO positive, open credit card accounts. Less than three months later, I have EIGHT open revolving accounts of my own (plus two on which I am an authorized user). I pay my balances in full every month and I know when summer is here and my accounts have all aged six months or more, my score will have improved even more and I will be able to open accounts with Barclays Bank, Discover, etc.
If you don’t know the shopping bag trick or understand bumpage, this may not be the best idea for you. Also, GEMB does not like public records or collections (from my experience). Start with Walmart – if you don’t get approved there, no need applying for any other GEMB accounts. And if you have a collection or public record and are not approved, that is more than likely why.
All my store accounts are showing on my credit files already. My current FICO score is 733 (TransUnion). When I started my credit repair less than three months ago, my score was 496. So, in three months, I have raised my score 237 points. It can be done.
Roots, Credit & Life 