Denied Wells Fargo secured credit card

[msm859]

Opened a new savings account and put $5,000 dollars in to use as collateral for a secured card and was denied. They said I had a short sale on my credit report - I do not. 2 years ago I did a loan modification with them and after further research they say that is the same as a short sale. It didn't matter that for the last 2 years I have not missed nor been late on a single payment and in fact most of the time I pay extra. I was discharged over a year ago so that apparently is not the problem. I was hoping to get a secured card and then advance to their home mortgage rebate card that pays 1% towards your mortgage. Interesting they view a loan modification the same as a short sale.

[df04527]

Yup lenders are funny like that but to consider a mod a short sale? Did the mod reduce the principal? I take it it is the same lender who you did the mod with that now denied you?

[msm859]

Yup lenders are funny like that but to consider a mod a short sale? Did the mod reduce the principal? I take it it is the same lender who you did the mod with that now denied you?

The loan modification was with Wells Fargo. They did not reduce the principal but went from a I/O ARM at 6.125% to a fixed 3.5% on a Jumbo Loan. So it was a good mod. Funny when I opened the account they gave me free checking and savings because of my mortgage with them. The credit side apparently doesn't look at payment history, it seems they have a blanket denial if you had previously received a loan modification.

[LadyInTheRed]

I guess I can count on never getting credit from Wells Fargo again after stripping my second mortgage with them. Oh well, my past experiences with them haven't been great anyway. When I was first establishing a credit history, I got a secured card from them. After a couple of years of timely payments, I was being offerred unsecured credit cards left and right and asked Wells Fargo to change my account to unsecured. They wouldn't do it, so I cancelled the card and moved my savings elsewhere.

It's pretty ironic: My bad credit decisions that eventually led to BK started at that time about 20 years ago when I was receiving all of those credit card offers as a result of establishing a good credit rating using the Wells Fargo's secured card. I later filed BK and am stripping an $88K Wells Fargo 2nd. At least they cut their losses by not giving me an unsecured card way back then.

[debrouillant]

I despise Wells Fargo. On the other hand, many lenders are denied secured credit card apps for a variety of reasons. A friend of mine has been out of BK for 4 years, has banked with BofA for 15 years (even worked for them in the past), and has many unsecured cards, but *still* gets denied for BofA secured. He applies every so often out of spite.

[Amy26]

I have definately become a fan girl of Credit Unions since the BK. They are really our credit heralds and I highly recommend them for people in our financial predicaments. Some of the secured cards you can get with the credit unions also graduate to unsecured cards after a certain period of time. I think I'm a member of.... lets see... 6 credit unions now? Navy Federal is the bread and butter of CUs if you can get in there. I also have Alliant, Congressional Federal, Partners FCU, State Department FCU and Pentagon Federal CU. I don't have credit products with all of them but its nice to have them on the back burner if I ever need.

I have credit with Navy, Alliant, Partners and State Department FCU and they have been quite generous. I recommend looking into a CU (if you have any local to your area) or some of the national ones or even some that I mentioned. There are usually organizations or associations you can join for like 10 bucks that will qualify you for membership of the credit unions with the exception of Navy and Partners (of the ones I listed).

[msm859]

I have definately become a fan girl of Credit Unions since the BK. They are really our credit heralds and I highly recommend them for people in our financial predicaments........

I agree. I found DCU - Digital Federal Credit Union and was approved for a $5,000 secured Platinum Visa credit card. Easy to join (became a member of an approved organization) I am heading to Europe next month and they sent the new card Fed Ex to make sure I had it. Pretty amazing in contrast to Wells Fargo who I have paid over $75k in mortgage payments the last 2 years - never late/usually extra and they were concerned about a secured credit card. DCU actually asked me the "story" behind my bankruptcy. I do have another cc through a local credit union which was easy to get but there maximum limit is only $1500 and they don't have a grace period so I have basically been making payments as soon as I use it.

[Amy26]

Excellent MSM! Thank you for sharing that... I will add it to my BK friendly list of CUs. I had applied to join DCU at one time but they really pissed me off and I cancelled my membership application. They kept delaying my app and when I would call to check on the app, they would check my credit again. I didn't realize it at first so after I had called in 3 times since app'ing they had checked my credit 4 times! So, I got really annoyed and had to speak to a manager and ask them to remove all the inquiries from my report and cancel my app. Which they did and apologized a lot but it left a bad taste in my mouth. :/