How many secured credit cards to improve my score?

[ScottL]

I have been trying to fix and improve my credit score over the past 6 months or so. My ultimate goal is 700+, but short term I would be happy with 650+.  I am now around 580 or so for each. So I am improving and going in the right direction.

I hired Lexington Law and they have removed 6 things already in like 2+ months.  I also was approved and got a Capital One secured credit card about 4+ months ago.

My question now is, should I get another 1-2 secured credit cards? Would it raise my score to have more than just the 1 card? Currently the only open credit lines I have is my mortgage, auto loan and the 1 credit card.

Most of my bad credit is 2 chargeoffs and late payments. Im trying to focus on making my payments on time now, and hoping Lexington can do something about the charge offs. But other than making my payments on time, Im wondering if there is anything I can do myself to help like another CC or something

[ScottL]

not sure if it matters, but looks like I got the Capital One card back at the end of January. So its almost been a year. wow time flies I guess....

[Revelate]

Minimum you want from a FICO scoring perspective is 2; 3 may be slightly better but if you're already at 4 months with the one secured card, I'd wait before adding a third as you're less than a year away for qualifying for "keeper" cards.  Might be able to get an Amex charge card at six months for that matter if it'd be of interest to you.

In your case, I'd check to see on Cap One's pre-qual site if you could get the entry Quicksilver card, and if that didn't work I'd apply for a BOFA secured card, and finally if that still failed, a SDFCU secured one.

[ScottL]

not sure if it matters, but looks like I got the Capital One card back at the end of January. So its almost been a year. wow time flies I guess....

[ScottL]

according to the Pre Qual site, it says

we couldn't match your records to a card offer.

But based on your answers, we think you might like these cards.

Quick Silver card, along with the Platinum and Classic Platinum

[Shogun]

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@ScottL wrote:

according to the Pre Qual site, it says

we couldn't match your records to a card offer.

But based on your answers, we think you might like these cards.

Quick Silver card, along with the Platinum and Classic Platinum

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That means it would be a cold app.  There's no pre selected offers for you.

[ScottL]

So now that it has been 11 months since I have had my Capital One secured card, should I go after 2 more secured cards? Or should I try and have them up my limit or something?  Im not sure my credit score is high enough now to qualify for a real card yet.

[notfancy]

They won't up your limit on a secured card.

Your best bet would be to 1) make sure your utilization is very low on the card you currently have, 2) check your fico score and see where you are at. 3) look into options for a card that might grow with you- BOA has a secured card that will unsecure, so do some credit unions I think.. search this site for more information on cards that will unsecure. The capital one secured will never graduate to an unsecured card. You can try "whogavemecredit.com" and type in your scores to see who with a similar profile was approved and for which cards.

2 cards should be good as long as you keep one at 0% and the other between 1-9% utilization. If you go over that, your scores are going to keep taking  a hit.

[ScottL]

From all the ones I looked at, I think Im leaning towards the BofA card for the exact reason you said. Eventually it could become a real card and I could get my security deposit back.

So lets say I just put in $300. I would then have a $200 CapOne, and a $300 BofA secured cards. You are suggesting I keep one of those card's balances at $0 and the other purposely keep at 9%?   For instance, my Cap One card keep a balance of $18 month to month and BofA at $0?

[notfancy]

Yes. You can use it as much as you want, but make sure that when the balance is going to report that you are reporting between 2 and 18 dollars. (You'll have to figure out what the reporting date is though and there is some advice on the forums here as to how to do that... I just can't make heads or tails of it myself)

Or if you get the $300 one from BOA you can report up to $27.

You can also send in more money to deposit on your Cap 1 to up your limit if you want, but that is up to you.