Credit Terms Glossary

While browsing forums and articles, you’re guaranteed to come across many terms and acronyms that aren’t familiar and can be hard to decode.

To help out with the terms you’ll find elsewhere such as forums or the comments of our site as well as the unique terms we use, we’ve compiled one of the biggest and best credit terms index available!

A                                                          

  • AA – Adverse Action
    The action a card issuer takes against a cardholder like account closure, interest rate hike, or other negative change. Can also be used in reference to American Airlines and their credit card (but less common).
  • AAOA – Average Age of Accounts
    The ‘credit age’ that factors into your FICO score. This is an average from the age of all your reporting accounts and may vary between credit bureaus depending on what is reported.
  • AF – Annual Fee
    The once-yearly fee charged by some credit card issuers. This is most often found on sub-prime cards and cards with high percentage rewards programs.
  • A.G. – Attorney General
  • AMEX – Short name for American Express
  • APP – Used instead of ‘Apply’ or ‘Application’
  • APP SPREE – Submitting a frequent number of applications for credit in a short period of time.
  • APR – Annual Percentage Rate
  • AR – Account Review
    Can be automated by the financial instituion or requested by the account holder. Usually a manual review of someone’s account in order to issue a larger credit limit.
  • AU – Authorized User
    Someone listed on a credit card account that they are not the primary cardholder for. For example: a man adds his wife to his Discover account. She is the AU on his account.

B                                                          

  • BADDIE – Any negative item or account listed in a consumer report.
  • BBB – Short name for the Better Business Bureau.
  • BC – ‘Blue Cash’ from Amex
  • BCE – ‘Blue Cash Everyday’ from Amex
  • BCP – ‘Blue Cash Preferred’ from Amex
  • BK – Bankruptcy
  • BK7 – Chapter 7 Bankruptcy
  • BK13 – Chapter 13 Bankruptcy
  • BoA – Bank of America
  • BT – Balance Transfer
  • BTW – By The Way

C                                                          

  • C&D – Cease & Desist
    A letter used (mostly by lawyers) to stop contact from an unlawful source. For example: collection calls during the automatic stay of a bankruptcy.
  • CA – Collection Agency
  • CAP1 – Capital One
  • CBR – Credit Bureau Report
  • CC – Credit Card
  • CCC – Credit Card Company
  • CCCS – Consumer Credit Counseling Services
  • CCT – Credit Check Total
    A credit score and monitoring service run by Experian.
  • CFPB – Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
    The agency responsible for enforcing laws like the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
  • CL – Credit Limit
  • CLD – Credit Limit Decrease
  • CLI – Credit Limit Increase
  • CLOC – Checking Line of Credit
  • CMRRR – Certified Mail, Return Receipt Requested
  • CO – Charge Off
    The status of an account that has been written off as bad debt by the creditor.
  • CR – Credit Report
  • CRA – Credit Reporting Agency
  • CS – Customer Service
  • CSR – Customer Service Representative
  • CU – Credit Union

D                                                          

  • DCU – Digital Credit Union
  • Derog – Derogatory item or account.
  • DH – ‘Dear Husband’ used as a short way to reference a husband.
  • DM – Direct Message (see also: PM)
  • DOLA – Date Of Last Activity
  • DOFD – Date Of First Delinquency
  • DTI – Debt-To-Income
    The ratio used by lenders as one factor that determines if they will approve your application.
  • DV – Debt Validation
  • DW – Dear Wife

E                                                          

  • EE – Early Exclusion
    When a creditor, collection agency, or credit reporting agency allows an account or item to be removed or changed prior to the forecasted date.
  • EQ (or EFX) – Equifax
  • EX (or EXP) – Experian
  • EO – Executive Office

F                                                          

  • FA – Fraud Alert
  • FAKO – Similar to FICO score, but issued by a company other than FICO and follows a different way of calculating the score. These scores are often quite different than your FICO Score.
  • FC – Foreclosure
  • FCBA – Fair Credit Billing Act
  • FCRA – Fair Credit Reporting Act
  • FDCPA – Fair Debt Collection Practices Act
  • FI – Financial Instituion, (2) Less common: Fair Isaac
  • FICO – Fair Isaac & Co
    The company that develops the FICO scoring models.
  • FICO Score – The score issued using the FICO model. Most commonly used as of 2016 is the FICO 8 model.
  • FR – Financial Review
  • FTC – Federal Trade Commission
  • FTF – Foreign Transaction Fee
  • FWIW – For What It’s Worth

G                                                          

  • Gardening – The choice to not apply for new credit and instead focus on just growing your current tradelines and accounts.
  • GC – Green card from a certified letter’s return receipt.
  • GECRB / GEMB – GE Capital Retail Bank / GE Money Bank
    Both are former names for what is now Synchrony Bank.
  • Goodwill Letter – A letter sent to credit bureau or the original creditor explaining circumstances regarding a mishap with an account and requesting a positive action based on nothing but a gesture of good faith.

H                                                          

  • Hard Inquiry / HP – Hard Pull
    An inquiry requested by you when you submit an application for credit. A hard inquiry is one that is visible to other lenders when they pull your credit and it affects your score.
  • HELOC – Home Equity Line of Credit

I                                                          

  • IIB – Included in Bankruptcy
  • IMO / IMHO – In My Opinion or In My Honest/Humble Opinion
  • INQ – Inquiry
  • ITS – Intend to Sue

J                                                          

  • JCP – JC Penny
  • JDB – Junk Debt Buyer
    Sometimes called a ‘bad debt buyer’.

L                                                          

  • LOC – Line of Credit
  • LTV – Loan-to-Value

M                                                          

  • MF – Monthly Fee
  • MOV – Method of Verification

N                                                          

  • NFCU – Navy Federal Credit Union

O                                                          

  • OC – Original Creditor

P                                                          

  • PC – Product Change
    A change between credit products with the same issuer.
  • PenFed – Pentagon Federal Credit Union
  • PFD – Pay For Delete
    An arrangement between you and a collection agency or creditor in which you pay an agreed-upon amount and they delete the account from your credit reports.
  • PIF – Pay In Full
  • PLOC – Personal Line of Credit
  • PM – Private Message (See also: DM)
  • PP – Permissible Purpose
  • PR – Public Record

Q                                                          

  • QS or QS1 – Quicksilver card from Capital One

R                                                          

  • RECON – Reconsideration
  • RMA – Risk Management Alternatives

S                                                          

  • SCT – ‘Shopping Cart Trick’
    The method of getting a pop-up preapproval for a store card at certain websites.
  • SL – Starting Limit
    The beginning limit you open a credit card with.
  • SO – Significant Other
  • Soft Inquiry / SP – Soft Pull
    An inquiry from you checking your own credit, a company prequalifying you, employer, or other non-application for credit pupose. These inquiries do not affect your credit score.
  • Subprime – A grouping of lending criteria and credit products for consumers with low credit scores. Usually comes with higher fees and interest rates.
  • SYNCB/SYNC – Abbreviation for Synchrony Bank.

T                                                          

  • TL – Tradeline
    An account reported on your credit history.
  • TOS – Terms of Service
  • TU – TransUnion

U                                                          

  • USAA – United Services Automobile Association
    Major bank providing service to servicemembers and their families. 
  • UTL / UTIL – Utilization
    The ratio of credit used vs total overall credit line avaialable between all your cards. This is used in calculating your score and has a large affect on it.
  • UW – Underwriter
    A person designated to make consumer lending/credit decisions on behalf of a financial instituion.

V                                                          

  • VS – Visa Signature or Victoria’s Secret credit card.
    Both commonly used.
    Visa Signature cards offer the 2nd highest level of service and benefits to Visa cardholders and often have stricter requirements for approval – including income.

W                                                          

  • WEMC – World Elite MasterCard
    The highest level of benefits available to a cardholder. Similar to Visa Signature.

Y                                                          

  • YMMV – Your Mileage May Vary.