Trying to Save a Few Bucks on Jeans Tanked His Credit Score. Here’s How He Saved It
Disclosure: We’re letting you know that this post contains sponsored links which The Smart Wallet receives compensation for, which may impact their order of appearance. This site doesn’t include all available offers.
This could happen to anyone.
You’re shopping and at checkout, the rep asks if you want to sign up for the store’s credit card to save 20% off your purchase. Tempting, right?
This is what happened to Joe K. when he was shopping at Gap and purchased a pair of $80 jeans.
“I thought saving $16 on the jeans was a good deal so I signed up for the card,” explained Joe. “It was easy. Filled out the info and didn’t think much of it.”
It wasn’t until 3 years later when Joe needed to rent an apartment that he checked his score and found it was 605. Too low to rent an apartment.
“I was so confused,” said Joe. “I paid my bills on time so I didn’t know what happened.”
When he checked his full report, he realized the mistake he made.
“When I signed up for the Gap credit card, I put my parents’ address,” he said. “I forgot about the bill and over time it got turned over to collections and that tanked my score.”
Joe continued, “I felt so stupid. Trying to save $16 on jeans actually caused me more headache.”
It didn’t matter that Joe paid his other credit card bills on time. Just the one bill that got turned over to collections dragged his score down and negated all his other positive activity.
Steps Joe Took to Fix his Credit
Feeling a bit helpless, he started using a credit repair agency but even after paying them, it did nothing for his score.
This is when he found Credit Sesame, a credit monitoring service that helped Joe fix his credit for free.
To start, the app sent Joe a free credit report card, including his TransUnion credit score along with personal recommendations.
It showed him an easy-to-read view of his total debt plus everything that was contributing to his low score.
Joe finally started to feel more in control. His favorite part of Credit Sesame is the personalization. It lists very specific steps that he can follow to better manage his credit score.
“I felt relieved as they were showing me exactly what to do,” Joe said.
And after he followed the app’s suggestions, his score improved dramatically.
“My highest score is now 746,” Joe said. He raised his score by 200 points within 6 months and have since moved out of his friend’s place and into his own. “I’m never going to write different addresses again.”
Credit Sesame is 100% free to use. You’ll get a free credit report and score, recommended steps and daily alerts if anything changes. As an added bonus, you’ll get $50,000 coverage for identity theft protection.
So if your credit score isn’t as high as you’d like or you haven’t checked lately, go ahead and check out Credit Sesame to see what it can do for you.
