Short a few credits

Recently I had a blip on my credit rating (a credit card that we [me and the former Mr. HP] thought we had canceled was not, there were late charges, bill got sent to an address neither of us have ever had, bill was unpaid. Bill is now paid.) One little blip, easily explained, taken care of immediately. But my credit rating plummeted, and will likely remain much lower for up to ten years! No, that isn't a typo.

This sort of thing just plays on my biggest fear: if I make one little mistake, if I stop paying attention for one moment, it'll all fall apart. And after it falls apart, it'll be so hard to fix. I just hate that feeling and things like this reenforce this fear.

But it did show me how flawed the credit system truly is. When I went to fix all this, I (obviously) checked my whole record and it's nothing but a series of green checks. Years of on-time payments of mortgages, credit cards, etc, not a scratch on the record, except for this blip. But as a result of this (explainable) blip, there goes 100 points. Oh, I also got dinged for opening new accounts last year: a new mortgage and new solo credit cards. But I moved and got a divorce! No matter, says the credit agencies -- you are clearly some sort of crazy risk to us.

I understand that the agencies exist for a reason. But that number should be a guide, not the be-all and end-all. Because mistakes happen. Moving and changes in people's lives happen. People have bad times in their lives, they get back on their feet, but maybe they let a couple of things slip. It shouldn't follow them for ten years!

As a result of this blip, I decided to get a new credit card (I tend to use one card for pretty much everything) through my bank. The bank I have been with for over 15 years. The bank that I have a fairly large sum of cash in savings with. The bank where I've never had an overdraft, never had any sort of issue with. I'm a fan of this bank, really I am. But I when I applied for this card: rejection! I called and got an approval for a small-ish credit limit (a few percent of what I have in the bank with them, I'd like to point out), but it was embarrassing and annoying.

I'm lucky. When something like this happens to me, I have back-ups. I can go to other places to pay for things. But if I were struggling, if I had waited to buy my house, if I lived paycheck to paycheck, this would have been a huge issue. For me, for now, this is an annoyance.