topic Re: Credit card approval with ITIN in Credit Card Approvals

Credit card approval with ITIN

ccuser — Fri, 29 Nov 2013 05:28:17 GMT

My wife is on H4 visa and not eligible for a SSN. However, she has been an authorized signer all of my credit card for 3 years, including one from Citi bank.

Several months ago we started to receive offers for various cards from Citi addressed to her. We used to ignore them, but they kept sending. So we decided to try and submitted the online application with the received preapproval code and her ITIN instead of the SSN. And surprisingly she was instantly approved for a normal unsecured ThankYou Preferred World Mastercard with $7k limit! This is kind of weird as she doesn't seem to have any credit history. I tried to retrieve her score or report on CreditKarma and other free online services, but no avail.

So, is this even normal to be approved for a credit card with no SSN?

Re: Credit card approval with ITIN

mnavas — Fri, 29 Nov 2013 06:21:36 GMT

Bank of America, Citibank, Discover, Chase, AMEX and Cap 1 are some of the CC issuers that we'll give you a credit card using an ITIN instead of a SSN but some of them might require you to mail or e-mail a copy of your ITIN for verification purposes. Also, they might not approve you instantly online because their online apps are set up to verify some pieces of info with the credit agencies and usually ITINs won't appear on credit reports even when creditors report it to credit bureaus

There are some lenders who won't approve you if don't have a valid SSN. Ex: Wells Fargo, Barclays and US Bank

Are you sure she didn't have any other tradelines besides the AUs? It's kind of weird that Citibank approved her without having credit on her own..

Congrats to Your DW she got a nice CL.

Re: Credit card approval with ITIN

coldnmn — Fri, 29 Nov 2013 11:01:13 GMT

Welcome to the forum. Congrats to DW ! Thanks for sharing.

Re: Credit card approval with ITIN

alvon123 — Sat, 30 Nov 2013 15:10:34 GMT

congrats on the approval

Re: Credit card approval with ITIN

ccuser — Sun, 01 Dec 2013 04:53:59 GMT

Thanks for your response, guys. I didn't think it's possible to get a credit card with ITIN, but apparently it's OK.

Re: Credit card approval with ITIN

mnavas — Sun, 01 Dec 2013 18:09:23 GMT

Yes, it is possible. Many banks and some credit unions don't really care about your inmigration status or if you have a SSN. An ITIN and SSN are kind of the the same for many financial institutions and they are just a piece of info they need to verify so they can ID a person and comply with Patriot Act

As i mentioned before CRAs won't include an ITIN on credit reports and that's why you won't be able to request them online but you can do request your reports by filling out this form: www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/resources/forms/requestformfinal.pdf and send it through the mail but i think only EXP will send your credit report and the other two won't let you see it until you have a SSN and send a copy to them....

The two crucial parts for Banks and CUs to approve an app is income and make sure you're going to pay your bills on time and thats why you need to have some kind of credit history (credit files) the CRAs

Re: Credit card approval with ITIN

gdale6 — Mon, 24 Feb 2014 17:03:26 GMT

@ccuser wrote:
My wife is on H4 visa and not eligible for a SSN. However, she has been an authorized signer all of my credit card for 3 years, including one from Citi bank.
Several months ago we started to receive offers for various cards from Citi addressed to her. We used to ignore them, but they kept sending. So we decided to try and submitted the online application with the received preapproval code and her ITIN instead of the SSN. And surprisingly she was instantly approved for a normal unsecured ThankYou Preferred World Mastercard with $7k limit! This is kind of weird as she doesn't seem to have any credit history. I tried to retrieve her score or report on CreditKarma and other free online services, but no avail.
So, is this even normal to be approved for a credit card with no SSN?

Yes and congrats to DW

Re: Credit card approval with ITIN

efranklin23 — Mon, 24 Feb 2014 23:10:21 GMT

@ccuser wrote:
My wife is on H4 visa and not eligible for a SSN. However, she has been an authorized signer all of my credit card for 3 years, including one from Citi bank.
Several months ago we started to receive offers for various cards from Citi addressed to her. We used to ignore them, but they kept sending. So we decided to try and submitted the online application with the received preapproval code and her ITIN instead of the SSN. And surprisingly she was instantly approved for a normal unsecured ThankYou Preferred World Mastercard with $7k limit! This is kind of weird as she doesn't seem to have any credit history. I tried to retrieve her score or report on CreditKarma and other free online services, but no avail.
So, is this even normal to be approved for a credit card with no SSN?

Congrats!

Re: Credit card approval with ITIN

newhis — Fri, 09 May 2014 22:31:09 GMT

I got Discover IT with only ITIN and no credit history (only $1,000) and BofA secured.

I was able to ask for my credit reports thanks to Capital One that dennied my application. I already got EX and EQ, TU say they can't find my report and that I need to send more documents. Even EQ show my ITIN on my report as SSN. Both report my 2 cards.