QUESTION: My husband and I had ourbankruptcy discharged in August 2004. We bought one car during thebankruptcy and another after the discharge. Our credit scores rangefrom the mid-500s to the low-600s between the two of us when looking atthe credit scores from all three credit bureaus.
Other than the two-car loans, my husband was approved for acredit card to help rebuild our credit rating with the one bureau thatthe car loan companies do not report to. My question is, "When shouldwe refinance our cars to get a lower interest rate and with whom?" Webank with a credit union and we don't have any activity on the creditcard yet.
We have several paid-off cars from the last five years with nolate payments, and with the bankruptcy we were offered a 100-percentfinancing for a home, but declined the offer because the loan was notenough to buy the home we wanted. I feel we're pretty close but don'twant to hurt our credit scores by applying for credit unnecessarily.
ANSWER: A lot of readers will take hearttoday from your comments to see that access to credit during and afterbankruptcy is possible without having to wait years before that canhappen.
Getting a credit card and not using it may help your creditscore a little, but the credit bureaus are looking for you todemonstrate that you can handle credit responsibly. When you look atyour credit report for that account, it shows when the account wasopened, your payment history, the credit line, the highest maximumbalance and the current balance. The inactive account just shows thatyou were approved and the size of the credit line. Given your pastproblems with credit, I hesitate to suggest that you should run abalance just to show a payment history, but that's what you need to doto rebuild your credit score.
