Way to get pre-approved store credit cards no credit check and rebuild credit

[ironpirate]

These websites (and they are others) are all a part of the same network: WFNNB, World Financial Network Bank. They usually pull Experian reports, but some may pull others. They are all retail cards, some are Visa branded, most are not. Mostly clothes, some furniture and other things. I have seen most in the mall or catalogs I get in the mail:

Abercrombie & Fitch
Ann Taylor
Ashley Stewart
Avenue
Bealls
Brylane Home
The Buckle
Catherines
Chadwicks of Boston
Crate and Barrel
Domestications
Dress Barn
Eddie Bauer
Express
Fashion Bug
Friedman’s Jewelers
Goody's Family Clothing
J.Crew
Jessica London
KingSize
La Redoute
Lane Bryant
Lerner New York
Limited Too
MetroStyle
New York & Company
Newport News
Peebles
Pottery Barn
Roamans
Silhouettes
Spiegel
Structure
The Company Store
The Limited
Victoria's Secret

SOME POINTS TO CONSIDER:

SOFT INQUIRIES
Since these are preapprovals by soft inquiries, your credit report does not get hit with a hard inquiry, therefore your credit score is not affected and other creditors do not see soft inquiries, only hard inquiries.

AGE OF ACCOUNTS
If you are rebuilding, you may want to add positive accounts now so that 6 months, a year or two down the road these accounts have aged and helped improve your scores.

CREDIT MIX AND UTILIZATION
These lines would help your credit mix and add to your total credit line. They may be small at first, so to help your score you could either pay in full each bill or only use a small amount. Yes, keep in mind I have heard 35% of your credit line used is ok, but 10% utilization is golden to your FICO scores.
Let’s say you have a $500 credit limit. If you use 35% of that, it is $175 the most you can use. 10% of $500 would be $50, the most you could use.

DO NOT APPLY IF NOT PREAPPROVED
If you are rebuilding and do not see a preapproval offer, I would not apply for the credit b/c then you will have a hard inquiry and we all know hard inquiries do hurt your score, especially after 5 in the last 6 months.

CREDIT LINE INCREASES:
These companies normally give out credit line increases in 9 months provided you have a good credit limit, etc. at the time. I haven’t had mine that long to say if it is true.

AS ALWAYS PLEASE BE RESPONSIBLE!!!!
You want to build credit so that lenders can see an excellent credit history. Getting cards and charging them up to the max can hurt your score really bad!!!

Please note, everyone’s situation is not the same so you may have different outcomes.

HOW TO SEE IF YOU ARE PREAPPROVED

Go to the website: http://www.victoriasecret.com or http://www.express.com for example.

Add a few things to your cart, an item or two and go to check out as if you would order normally and register when it asks. I don’t think you have to input any credit card info. After you register with items in your cart, the preapproval should just pop up. At that point you can accept the offer and it will let you know your limit. You don’t have to buy anything to accept the offer.

There are tons of WFNNB stores, but I’m not sure if this works for all. Somehow, their system softs your credit report and all it needs is your address and date of birth, maybe phone number. They may need your ssn to confirm the offer, but that is it.

Check to see what the store offers first before you check into the preapproval. You may not be interested in what the store offers.

This has worked for me personally with victoria secret, express and buckle. Easy way to build credit and not take hits on your credit report. Some times you have to fill out your profile before adding to your cart.

[ironpirate]

Has anybody tried this yet? Want to make sure its helping.

[jeff6898]

My wife and I tried just about the whole list that had this option and got zero per-approvals, I just don't think WFNNB likes us. We might be trying to soon. Our BK was discharged 5/12 Exerian scores 605 and 612. We have credit established since bk. We will try again later down the road.

[ironpirate]

Did create a member profile before you added to the cart? I know that's what helped my wife at Express, buckle and victoria secret.

[Amy26]

It does work... you need to be Opt'd In for it to work though. And you do need to register an account before trying it. It needs to link your name with your address. The limits will be small at first but you can get regular CLIs with soft pulls every 3 months or so. The CLIs are usually small as well. For my husband and I, we were able to get offers from Value City Furniture, Victoria's Secret, King Size Direct, J.Jill, OneStopPlus (this one is an actual Visa) and Buckle. I didn't actually take most of those cards though because you don't really want a ton of store cards on your credit but they do serve as a nice little no hard pull account.

[tobee43]

amy, i'm not interested, but what does opt'd in mean??? exactly.

i know right now on my credit karma it has a list of some of these which i have never had as opened with lines on them! i don't mind j crew or pottery barn, but some of the others listed on my credit karma are just wrong! when i pulled my credit report last year they were not there??

[ironpirate]

It does work... you need to be Opt'd In for it to work though. And you do need to register an account before trying it. It needs to link your name with your address. The limits will be small at first but you can get regular CLIs with soft pulls every 3 months or so. The CLIs are usually small as well. For my husband and I, we were able to get offers from Value City Furniture, Victoria's Secret, King Size Direct, J.Jill, OneStopPlus (this one is an actual Visa) and Buckle. I didn't actually take most of those cards though because you don't really want a ton of store cards on your credit but they do serve as a nice little no hard pull account.

my wife couldn't get credit anywhere and I opened her a victoria secret, buckle, express and target and bam 4 lines of credit. It upped her score a lot.

[tobee43]

so again what is opt'd in?

[tobee43]

holy poo.....just for giggles i did a pottery barn and got a 2k limit!!! now THAT IS SCARY, i don't want it...shoot, i thought it would just just reject it...

ok...anyone need anything at pottery barn? and what is it they sell????

[ironpirate]

lol nice and no hard hit

[tobee43]

by the way it doesn't say WFNNB, World Financial Network Bank...it says Comenity Bank?

[Amy26]

WFNNB is now Comenity.

You can Opt In or Opt Out... this is the universal program for getting preapproved offers and stuff. If you got the offer, then you're probably opt'd in. You are opt'd in by default if you haven't turned it off. I'm opt'd out at the moment cause I hate getting all those spams.

Pottery Barn is a nice store... sell all kinds of stuff.

[tobee43]

WFNNB is now Comenity.

You can Opt In or Opt Out... this is the universal program for getting preapproved offers and stuff. If you got the offer, then you're probably opt'd in. You are opt'd in by default if you haven't turned it off. I'm opt'd out at the moment cause I hate getting all those spams.

Pottery Barn is a nice store... sell all kinds of stuff.

thanks amy, i just know i don't need any more pots. LOL!! i checked the site it does have some nice things. also i realized i knew that name from somewhere ....but it was pottery barn kids?? i thought it was potty barn, that's how much i know about it. but the good news is we have expecting another baby in the family and that's where they get their sheets and stuff, so i made a good mistake! now my DDIL (well she's really not darling), can buy her own stuff for the baby i can just give her the card...very cool and all my accident!

[tobee43]

oppppppppppsssssss

got this in my email: You have a new hard inquiry on your credit report.

so it's NOT a soft hit!

[Amy26]

O.o I don't see how that is possible... you didn't actually apply for the card right? Did you accept it? I have never seen "the shopping cart trick" give someone a hard pull.