Am I a good credit risk or not?

These institutions apparently don't think so:

My credit record is generally very good; a lender's representative said in 2010 that he'd never seen anything like it: "never 30 days late in 30 years!" True! Also: never late on any mortgage, rent or car payment.

But!

• I was out of work for a couple of months recently and have taken on extra credit card debt
• I have been a bit sloppy in the past with credit card payments and been a month late here and there
• I have a complicated bank life, with a subchapter S corporation that I work through sometimes and a normal checking account I use otherwise and have to transfer money back and forth between for various bills. I have goofed and overdrawn these accounts (always briefly) occasionally

And last but not least:

• In a fit of pique in 2009 I refused to pay a second $29 overlimit fee on this credit card my wife was using. She had been over the $4000 limit a couple of times and I had called and gotten the fee reversed. But I never got the limit raised or switched her to a different card, and at one point they said 'no'. "Even if I stop using this card?" "Even then", they said. I paid the first $29 fee, stopped using the card, and refused to pay the second when it came a month later.

This is called a serious delinquency even though the amount was tiny (eventually recaching $129) ... and having gone through 6 levels of increasingly overoptimistic collections agencies trying to get it; I have never responded to any of them.

My credit score recently after all this: 693. This is less than stellar, and if this number is all the lender is looking at I can see that they might think me too much risk.

But there is one lender that's twice now been willing to lend me sizable amounts of money when the two organizations above would not:

That's Pentagon Federal Credit Union.

I was first attracted to them via their ultra-low car loan rates. I borrowed to buy my first Chevy Volt in 2011. They later offered me a mortgage on a rental property we own after Wells Fargo turned me down, and just the past few days offered a substantial increase in a HELOC we have with them after BECU turned us down recently for a personal line of credit.

From now on PenFed is going to be my first stop for anything financial related. You don't have to be a military veteran to join, either! I highly recommend them.