@cashnocredit wrote:I got a Citi secured card on a thin file with some CAs and a tax lien. They were over 3 years old though and I also had two good lines but they were only open about 6 months. After 18 months Citi unsecured the card.
At the time I think my FICO was around 640. I've heard Citi is more sensitive about recent baddies but they clearly allow some as long as they are older.
I've gotten BOA secured cards before with a tax lien, and no positive tradelines. Most recently, tax lien, a few 30 day lates on an old BOFA card, and an open / unpaid collection under a year old (only 193 bucks but...). EX FICO under 600 for certain.
I've banked with them for more than a decade, it probably helped some.
Personally any trouble with the BOFA secured product has been completely my fault, it really is one of the best out there and has been for years.
If you open up 2, do both right now, don't stretch out the inquiries to try to save short-term FICO score damage, plan for the long term and get the new tradelines aging immediately.
That all said, I'd look at the rest of my report before tying up 10K worth of cash on secured cards.
@Anonymous wrote:Yeah, Ive been with bank of america for past 8 years. I am hoping that it will help.
SO what you (Revelate) is saying is that you think i should open it up NOW for 10k? But bank of america secured credit card max credit line is 5k. open two seucred credit cards from bank of amreica? xD I was thinking maybe open one bank of america secured credit card now and three months later and open up 5k citi bank seucred card. what do you think about that?
I probably mistyped something: open the BOFA, *and* the Citi cards at the same time. 5K each if your'e going that route. 2 BOFA secured cards at one time, no for a whole lot of reasons.
Generally speaking for FICO scoring, if you want a tradeline, you're better off establishing it the earlier the better. In this case since you don't really need the cards, and you're just trying to fudge CL's for the future, get them open ASAP if that's the game plan.
I had a $10k secured card from BOA so I'm not sure if they lowered the limit or not. I was/am also a customer for years before applying for the card. To help with my credit, I applied for another secured card through a local credit union. The downside to the latter was they only reported to EX I believe. I would check to make sure the one you choose reports to all 3! BOA of did.
Starting Score: 648
@clocktick wrote:I had a $10k secured card from BOA so I'm not sure if they lowered the limit or not. I was/am also a customer for years before applying for the card. To help with my credit, I applied for another secured card through a local credit union. The downside to the latter was they only reported to EX I believe. I would check to make sure the one you choose reports to all 3! BOA of did.
Yeah, that's a recurring issue with some cards from credit unions. The secured CC from a CU that I took I asked a current holder here on the forum and he confirmed that it reported to all three. We'll see when it finally goes on the report whether it's just EQ or all three.
Experian only isn't a bad deal for reporting if you live out west; pretty much everyone pulls EX for me in Cali. I have a personal loan which only reports to EX, but when I realized that all mortgage applications, and pretty much every prime card I think I'll eventually want (assuming the rewards structures stay relatively similar in the future) all likewise pull EX... so it's not a huge penalty. It could be worse after all, it could be reporting to TU only 