Best plan to create credit history?

[mohammadmoghimi]

I'm going to apply for an ITIN for my wife (I should have done it earlier ). I would like to create credit history for her. How should I start?

1. Does making her an authorized user on my cards help her to establish history?

2. If I sign up for say at&t cable with her itin and pay bills on time, does it create history?

3. What are the options for easy to get secured cards? How can I find one without annual fee? If such thing does not exist, is there one that I can get for her and then PC it to a regular card after one year or so? (I closed my secured card and open a regular with the same bank which was a dumb move. I didn't know much back then. )

4. Or easy to get regular cards?

5. Lastly, can she use my income as a support for her card application? She is currently not employed.

[enharu]

1. Yes
2. No. No point doing that either. AT&T will require you to fork out extra money as deposit.
3. Try Bank of America or Wells Fargo. Both have no AF, I think. I'm not too sure though so its best you call a branch to verify. The Bank of America secured card will graduate after 6-12 months in most cases. For Wells Fargo, she will most likely end up closing the account after she's able to get her own unsecured cards.
4. Its hard to get any unsecured cards right off the bat unless she's a college student and can qualify for college cards, or if she can deposit >10k average daily balance in an account with a bank, which they can then consider her for unsecured cards, usually 500-1000 CL, via special considerations route.
5. Depends on the lender. Read the T&C. For Amex, best to avoid it as well unless you both file joint taxes. Discover only allows household income in community states, if I'm not wrong.

[indiolatino61]

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@enharu wrote:
1. Yes
2. No. No point doing that either. AT&T will require you to fork out extra money as deposit.
3. Try Bank of America or Wells Fargo. Both have no AF, I think. I'm not too sure though so its best you call a branch to verify. The Bank of America secured card will graduate after 6-12 months in most cases. For Wells Fargo, she will most likely end up closing the account after she's able to get her own unsecured cards.
4. Its hard to get any unsecured cards right off the bat unless she's a college student and can qualify for college cards, or if she can deposit >10k average daily balance in an account with a bank, which they can then consider her for unsecured cards, usually 500-1000 CL, via special considerations route.
5. Depends on the lender. Read the T&C. For Amex, best to avoid it as well unless you both file joint taxes. Discover only allows household income in community states, if I'm not wrong.

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Enharu left me nothing to add...lol!

[newUser0]

Just to add what enharu said.

1. Adding At&T, will do a HP and it will only report to CB, if there is a account default. So it's of no use to build credit history, It only builds AT&T history Lol!

2. My suggestion would be get 2 cards a) Bank of America Secured card (Like 1000CL) and a CU Secured card (500 CL). BOA graduates after 1 year of responsible use. Make sure you get a right CU, which graduates your card.

3. After 3-4 months of this card, Apply for Capital One and Discover IT ( I guess both takes ITIN)

Finally, if she is eligible get her SSN, it's really easy to manage with SSN.