topic Re: Secured credit cards in Credit Cards

Secured credit cards

Anonymous — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:58:01 GMT

Does anyone know the affects getting a secured credit card will have on ones fico score? I currently have a median score of 592 and am trying to raise it above 620 before October. Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated, Thank you.

Message Edited by lostinthecreditworld on 07-02-2009 10:58 AM

Re: Secured credit cards

haulingthescoreup — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:34:31 GMT

Secured vs unsecured has absolutely no impact on your FICO score. If your credit profile "needs" additional revolving credit, then another CC will help, whether secured or unsecured.

Many people speculate that having a card report as secured will frighten off future lenders. Maybe; maybe not. Lenders aren't dumb --they know that everyone has to start somewhere, and some folks have to re-start, and so there might be a notation of "secured" on your reports somewhere.

But for FICO scoring purposes, it's irrelevant.

Re: Secured credit cards

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:07:33 GMT

+1 to Hauling's post.

Do you currently have any other credit cards? If so, how many, what type (major bank cards, store charge cards, etc...), and what's your utilization?

Adding another card has the potential to give you an immediate boost, or it can potentially knock you down some points in the short term. It'll really depend upon your specific credit profile, and how adding another card will impact it.

I'd be willing to guess that if you currently have no revolving credit, or less than three revolving credit accounts that you'd probably get a point boost.