So i was talking with a friend today and he mentioned that he would like to build his credit up so i told him i would help him. I had him register on sites that give free FICO and Vantage Score in front of me so that i can see what his credit reports had to get an idea. Come to find out he has absolutely no history whatsoever. No credit cards, loans, etc... ever, and HPs were the only things he had in his report. He must have had at least 6-8 HP in 2-3 years. He said most of them were because he was desperate to build credit and no one would approve him. so the first thing i told him was to stop generating HPs and that i was going to help him along the way and that if he would listen to me he would get good credit in no time.
So now after that i told him that he needed to get a Secured CC, i explained what a Secured CC is and how it works. so i looked online for the best Secured CC and noticed the Discover It Secured was one of the top. i quickly picked up on the fact that Discover also does SPs when it comes to CLI so this is going to help him big time because he will cut down on so many HPs.
However i noticed that Secured CC requires a checking/savings account and he doesn't have one either. so i told him first thing you need to do is go to chase and open up a new account and you'll also get $200 when you set up DD. this will also help start a relationship with Chase so it makes it easier for you to begin getting all the good Chase CCs down the road when you established some kind of credit.
I also told him about the Alliant Credit Union trick to help boost his score by 20-50+ points aswell and that will also help build his credit quicker.
so now i come to you guys to double check that this is the best path for my friend with no credit history. if there is a better option for him please let me know.
