Congratulations, you’ve made it!
You’ve reached the next level in your Credit Stacking journey and you’re applying for a new card.
You check the three credit bureaus and make sure you’re in good standing. Let's say hypothetically you’re good with Experian and Equifax…but you’re a little shaky with Transunion.
Maybe you have too many inquiries with them.
Not a problem! Two out of three isn’t that bad, right? There’s no guarantee they’ll pull from your Transunion.
You submit your application for your credit card and, you get denied. Why? They actually checked your Transunion account. The odds just worked against you!
Don't leave anything up to chance when it comes to applying for a new card. If your credit is low on a bureau, then an alternative is to freeze that bureau.
A credit freeze is when you restrict access to your account. This prevents your information from being released from an inquiry.
If they pull from a bureau with a bad standing, you will for sure get denied if you have a ton of late payments, inquiries, or things like that.
Freezing your credit puts you in control! You prevent the banks from checking from a bureau with bad standing.
The only real negative to doing this is that it will take a little bit of effort to set it up, remembering pins, and despite popular belief, it will not prevent someone from stealing your information.
So let's go back to our original scenario:
Experian and Equifax are in good standing and Transunion is not. You can freeze your credit with Transunion and strategically require the banks to check another bureau.
Even if they are set on pulling from one specific bureau, you should be good. What will happen if they try and check your credit on a frozen account is that they will more than likely ask you to lift the freeze.
In that scenario, you will want to tell the bank that this specific bureau has credit card fraud, so you will politely ask them to pull from another credit bureau.
Sometimes they will be down to pull from another bureau. In the event they are not down, maybe because they only check through one bureau, just take a step back and apply again later at another time.
There is no need to rush into another card it it means compromising your credit score and good standing with other bureaus. It’s like I always stress, make sure your relationship with the bank is good.
You can learn useful skills like how to freeze your credit with the bureaus in the Credit Stacking course or in my new book (more details to come).
And that's how you can freeze your credit on one of the bureaus. Once you've been approved for the card you want or you've decided to apply at a later date, be sure to unfreeze that bureau.
Guys, this is just one lesson I talk about in my new book (link to pre-order book if there is), which you can pre-order right now on either Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
Student members in my Credit Stacking course have the opportunity to receive a free, signed copy, so if you aren't a part of the community, now's the time to sign up.
We will be giving away free signed copies in our newsletter so be sure to subscribe to those and see how you can get one!
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