James,
My apologies for the abrupt and condescending tone in my prior post.
The awkward thing is you're stating the exact same rationale that I initially did on this card. Search the forum for "Make Your Move" if you don't believe me, I was it's biggest proponent.
The problem is they tossed up the disclaimer, this is not for people who already have credit histories that happen to be negative. So, here's the full analysis I did.
- Amex claims that it's not for people rebuilding: might be true, might be false. Yes it might ease approval into a Zync or other charge product for people with credit sins from the past, but the posted literature states that it doesn't.
- The card doesn't report, using cards which do report is absolutely beneficial for getting not only Amex but *other* lenders as well to extend you credit products. They want to see you spending money, unless you have large spend through your cards compared to most people who are at this strata for whatever reason, it's unarguably better to get the trasnactions flowing through cards which do report, because your usage is reported to the bureaus (EX self-pulled credit report states it explicitly in their payments section, and that's a sanitized version of the data at that which they didn't have to let us know about, odds are lenders use it).
- The Zync is an entry level card anyway. A year or two's clean history is typically enough to reach this level of credit worthiness for most people. Yes, the MYM prepaid card might short-cut it, but here's the flipside: I really, really doubt, and I have worked at a number of financial institutions, that they're going to ignore major derogatories with this card. In my case I have an ugly tax lien which Amex certainly knows about from my EX report, the prepaid card isn't going to help there, either I clear that underwriting hurdle on my own, or I don't, that's not a marginal approval case.
- What the card probably is designed for, Amex won't extend credit to someone with a thin file, at all; however, with this Amex debit card, they now have an internal record to offer a Zync (which really is a starter-unsecured card) to a class of folks they didn't have previously: students, and other people who have been using a debit card exclusively for years.
Anyway, these are my opinions only on the plusses and minuses on the card. They didn't have to post that third bullet point, and I honestly don't remember seeing it before I applied, but it's certainly been set there for the past five months. Personally I think they blew it, they wouldn't have needed to offer that $25 bonus for a $200 deposit if people were using the card religiously... read through the old thread, people were giddy over it to start. Missed opportunity for Amex I think.
TLDR: it might help you with Amex in particular, but it will hurt you for every other lender. Amex states that it won't help me as a rebuilder, and I'll get to an Amex eventually, your analysis may be different.
Edit: something which lowers the risk, I've had the prepaid card for close to six months now; I used the heck out of it for 2 months or thereabouts, and then stopped when the disclaimer was recognized. If for whatever reason in their infinite grace, in a month or so Amex emails me to apply for a Zync, then we have absolute proof that you're correct and I'm mistaken.
