Thanks for the welcome and all the info.
Mia, I am living in Virginia until January. The scores seem more in my favor here than once I'm in Oregon.
I did double check my report, there is one big bad slash on my report, I had 6 months of no payments and then go to collections on a card that wasn't being billed to the proper address. I paid in full as soon as I realized the problem existed. Would have been nice if the card had called me instead of just letting all those fees build up but then where's the profit in that?? ha.
My banker told me to call the credit agencies to get it off my record, but when I spoke to the credit program I was enrolled in they said that nothing would happen if I appealed because it was just the bad payment history that was hurting me, not that the balance wasn't paid. Should I call one of the agencies directly instead of talking to a third party service? The agent at the fraud service said that appealing can be bad because of the type of activity that puts on your report.
Is good not good enough these days to get approved for a card?