topic Re: Why I Have Five Secured Credit Cards and Attempting To Get More. in General Credit Topics

Why I Have Five Secured Credit Cards and Attempting To Get More.

Anonymous — Sat, 09 Feb 2019 22:43:11 GMT

I currently have five(5) secured credit cards:

1. Bank of America Cash Rewards Platinum Plus Secured Mastercard.

2. USAA Secured American Express.

3. Capital One Platinum Secured Mastercard.

4. TD Banks Cash Secured Visa Credit Card.

5. Citi Secured Mastercard.

I was approved for, but didn't accept:

1. Credit One Credit Card.

2. Indigo Credit card.

3. Total Credit Card.

4. Green Dot Platinum Secured Visa Credit card

5. OpenSky Secured Visa and other secured credit cards.

Now, the first question you might be asking yourself, right at this moment is:

"Why do you have FIVE(5) Secured Credit Cards?"

Well, I had/have seventeen separate student loans, with each reporting late payments to all three credit bureaus, so having just ONE secured credit card, reporting just ONE On-Time Payment per month, wasn't going to offset those late payments and do anything for my score. So, now, or at least since June 2018, I have FIVE separate credit cards reporting FIVE on-time payments monthly on my behalf, which increased my June 2018 440 FICO score to a January 2019 FICO score of 618, that's a 178 point increase in just under six months of systematically using this method.

I also have a Self Lender loan and a credit builder loan from two separate local credit unions.

By using these methods, I was able to get approved for a 2019 Honda Civic, something that would never had happened just six short months ago.

Your second question is, "Why are you seeking more secured credit cards?"

Because, with the exception of my USAA Secured American Express, each of my other secured credit cards will graduate into an unsecured credit card, just as long as I manage each of them properly. Plus, word via the grapevine is USAA is about to upgrade their two secured credit cards by allowing them to graduate to an unsecured credit card, which would be outstanding.

However, there are other banks that do the same, like BB&T, SunTrust, PNC, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo, not to mention some hometown(local) banks that will do the same.

Now, your third question might be, "Why does that matter?"

Because, before I was able to get the Bank of America Cash Rewards Platinum Plus Secured MasterCard, I already had a checking account relationship with them for over ten years, never bounced a check, never overdraft my account, as a matter of fact, none of my accounts with them were ever negative.

So, when I applied for an unsecured card and was declined, I was instantly approved for Bank of America Cash Rewards Platinum Plus Secured MasterCard, which opened they door for USAA, Capital One, TD Bank and Citi to offer and approve me for their secured credit cards, that will either graduate or allow me to product change into an unsecured credit card.

As you can tell, I don't obtain secured credit cards that won't enhance my credit and/or graduate into an unsecured credit card, as I see that as a waste of time.

Your final question, might be, "What's your end game?"

Well, my end game is to build on my current personal/business relationship with these banks, eventually graduating to their unsecured credit cards, and product change into something similar to what American Express/Chase/Discover has to offer and keep those seven to ten credit cards as "KEEPER CARDS" and complete 12 to 18 months of Gardening(Letting my credit grow with those cards).

I said all that to say this, if you have several negatives(late payments, missed payments or collections) on your credit reports, with each reporting monthly, then in my humble opinion, one secured credit card isn't going to get you where you need to be fast enough.

Yes, I know people will tell you to get one or two at the most, and if you don't have bad credit and only have a thin credit file, then that is absolutely the route to go.

However, if you have multiple headaches affecting your credit, then you need more than one positive tradeline helping you.

Finally, if you are going to get a secured credit card, please, please, please stay away from Predatory Lenders, like Credit One, Indigo, First Premier, Horizon Gold and more.

If I don't know anything about a secured credit card I'm attempting to obtain, I simply Google the card and/or watch YouTube videos and read the reviews.

Credit cards require "thorough" research, if not, you will fall victim to fee-harvester credit cards that are going to charge you a ridiculous amount of fees in your attempt to repair your credit, which isn't good, especially when there are quite a few better options out there.

I highly suggest local credit unions, where you can obtain both a secured savings loans(credit builder loan) AND a secured credit card, which will more than likely come without an annual fee, whuch in essence, outside of the deposit doesn't costs you one red cent to have in yoour wallet.

Just manage them properly and you will be good to go.

Re: Why I Have Five Secured Credit Cards and Attempting To Get More.

LittleSal — Sun, 03 Feb 2019 08:05:26 GMT

Sounds like you have a plan. Good work on your credit!

Re: Why I Have Five Secured Credit Cards and Attempting To Get More.

Anonymous — Sun, 03 Feb 2019 08:35:26 GMT

Thank You.

But, honestly it was reading, watching and following the advice of experts like Credit Shifu, Ask Sebby and others on YouTube and just like I refuse to take any unnecessary courses while in college, i made certain that I wasn't going to obtain any worthless secured credit cards.

My situation is different, as I don't think many members of this site credit was as low as mine FICO(440 Experian) and I worked my way up from there.

Re: Why I Have Five Secured Credit Cards and Attempting To Get More.

jamesdwi — Sun, 03 Feb 2019 12:27:05 GMT

Totally agree, if having one good thing in the credit world is good. Having 5 good things on your credit is 5 times as good and those get better over time. I started collecting store cards, many were SCT (shoping cart trick) cards that were just new trade lines added to my report, at the start my AAoA sucked, adding a few more cards didn't do much damage. But now my AAoA is 10,000 percent bullet proof, add a new card and my AAoA goes down a month, once the cards are established, CLI love is just a click away.

Re: Why I Have Five Secured Credit Cards and Attempting To Get More.

Anonymous — Sun, 03 Feb 2019 17:35:26 GMT

Are you now current on your student loans? Your score is only going to go so high if you are still delinquent. In addition, your cards may not graduate with deliquencies reporting.

Re: Why I Have Five Secured Credit Cards and Attempting To Get More.

Anonymous — Sun, 03 Feb 2019 20:43:20 GMT

Exactly!

People don't seem to understand that if one's credit is already horrible, then AAoA/Inquiries aren't going to make that much more of a difference.

Also, when one's credit score is so low, inquiries are a necessary evil.

If you don't apply for secured cards or credit builder loans, how on God's green earth are you going to be able to improve your credit?

Several experts act as if "EVERYBODY" is aiming for the Chase Trifecta cards and preach about "NOT" breaking Chase's 5/24 Rule, but not everyone is aiming for Chase cards. Would I love to have Chase's Trifecta credit cards and are they some of the best "KEEPER" cards on the market? Absolutely, but if Capital One, Discover, American Express, Bank of America, Citi, U.S. Bank and others are able to offer me, comparable credit cards "WITHOUT" a Chase-like 5/24 Rule, then I'm all for it. I'd get those comparable cards, garden them for two years then go after the Chase Trifecta.

That's just my opinion.

Am I wrong?

Re: Why I Have Five Secured Credit Cards and Attempting To Get More.

Anonymous — Sat, 09 Feb 2019 22:51:44 GMT

My student loans are still in default, and I haven't disputed them from a credit point of view, but I'm contesting the amount owed with my alma mater and the Dept of Education. Once they get their heads and you-know-what together, then hopefully, due to their error in accounting, they'd pull those "Late Payments" back from the credit bureaus and allow me to start fresh.

The issue is my G.I. Bill paid for 99% of my education, there is absolutely no reason, I should owe what they say I owe, even after graduate school, especially without one promissary note validating it! As I made certain I only took out loans that would cover class and books, no extra loans for cars, clothes or partying.

Also, 90% of my student loans are older than 24 months, some as old as 2013, which should in essence fall off in 2020, and if I'm not mistaken, late payments and collections older than 24 months don't impact your score, like a new deliquency that has occured within the last 24 months.

However, here's my greatest fear, that I work hard to get my score in the low to mid-700s, then Navient or the Dept of ED, report all seventeen separate students loans as deliquent again, or send them to another department within their building and "duplicate" report them that way.

But isn't that illegal?

That's like Verizon selling your unpaid cell phone bill to Collection Agency A, who keeps it for 6 years, 6 months, then they or Verizon send it to Collection Agency B, who attempts to restart the seven year clock.

Weird analogy, but I hope you or others understood and can give me some insight.

Thanks in advance.

Re: Why I Have Five Secured Credit Cards and Attempting To Get More.

dynamicvb — Mon, 04 Feb 2019 18:22:15 GMT

I'm not sure I agree with the whole strategy here, mainly because you are tying up a lot of money in deposits that could better be used somewhere else. but that is just my opinion. Having more tradelines even if they are positive does not necessarily offset the baddies. But they won't hurt either as long as you keep them positive and keep the reported utilization in check.

On the SL's if these are fed loans, they don't follow the same rules as a normal tradeline. They will stay on much longer than 7 or even 10 years if they are not resolved and the balance paid. Once you get the amounts right then its best to do a rehab on those as that should get them to remove the lates. Otherwise, the lates will stay with you for 7 years. Depending on the severity of the lates, they can hurt a lot longer than 24 months. The consensus around here is 30-day lates don't hurt much after a couple of years, but the more severe ones like 90-120 pulldown your score for the entire time they are present.

Re: Why I Have Five Secured Credit Cards and Attempting To Get More.

Anonymous — Tue, 05 Feb 2019 07:46:14 GMT

Good job — check discover I graduated from a $300 secured card to $1000 unsecured in 7 months.

Re: Why I Have Five Secured Credit Cards and Attempting To Get More.

Brian_Earl_Spilner — Tue, 05 Feb 2019 08:06:46 GMT

Nice job. The cap1 won't grow beyond the graduation. You should have got a discover. It's basically a normal card, only secured. You can even pc it after the first month to the 5% IT. On top of that, you can add to the limit, up to $2500. One of your next hurdles will be getting higher limits and having a card that's already much higher than the rest will help with that.

Re: Why I Have Five Secured Credit Cards and Attempting To Get More.

twall06 — Tue, 05 Feb 2019 19:21:55 GMT

Dude chill you got enough cards. Rebuilding isn't about opening acct after acct or getting a car loan with a high rate. The baddies need to be dealt with you really have enough credit no matter how many cards you add you will not have a great score with 17 student loans defaulted. Priority should be those for now not adding more credit.

Re: Why I Have Five Secured Credit Cards and Attempting To Get More.

Anonymous — Sat, 09 Feb 2019 22:55:34 GMT

I'm already working on the student loans, worse case, the balances remain the same and I rehab them, best case, the balances are corrected and the Dept of Education pulls/deletes the late payments and allow me to go from there.

Re: Why I Have Five Secured Credit Cards and Attempting To Get More.

Anonymous — Wed, 06 Feb 2019 19:23:21 GMT

Trust me, when I first started, the very first secured credit cards I wanted were Discover, Capital One and Cit.

However, all three initially declined me, so I went with the Bank of America Cash Rewards Platinum Secured Mastercard, then the USAA Secured American Express, I kept those two for about a month and re-applied with Discover, Capital One and Cit, and luckily Capital One approved me, but Discover and Citi declined me.

So, I went with the TD Bank Cash Secured Card, so i now had four secured cards and I still wanted the Cit and Discover, so in November of 2018, i applied for the Discover and Cit for the third time in five months and Citi finally approved me and of course Discover declined me, yet again.

Then in on December 29th, I applied for the Discover and the US Bank Secured credit cards, they both declined me stating, "Too Many Inquiries and too many recent opened accounts?

Let's not forget back in June 2018, when I initially applied, my credit score was 440 in December 2018 it was 581 and US Bank and Discover "STILL" declined me for a secured credit card.

I truly wanted the "Big Three," when it came to secured credit cards(Discover, Capital One and Cit), primarily because I know they do graduate to unsecured and I've heard nothing but outstanding reviews about them, but for months Discover has been acting as if they don't want my business, even with my last six months of outstanding payment history, 2% credit utilization, never maxing out either of the five secured credit cards and never being late.

Too be honest, if I had been approved for the Discover, Capital One and Citi secured cards back in June 2018, I, more than likely would have never applied for the BOA TD Bank and USAA secured cards and simply garden my cards, setting myself up for the Chase Trifecta cards after using these secured cards for six months to a year.

With that said, the Bank of American Cash Rewards Platinum Plus Secured Credit card is my favorite, due to the $150.00 cash back for spending $500, and the constant, neverending 3% dining, 2% groceries/wholesale clubs, 1% everything else.

The TD bank card is just as god, but they don't give you the spend.

Actually the worse secure card I have is the USAA AMEX Secured, otherthan reporting to all three credit bureaus it does absolutely nothing.

I still want the Discover and the US Bank secured cards, then I'll stop applying keep those and graduate, graduate, graduate!

Re: Why I Have Five Secured Credit Cards and Attempting To Get More.

Anonymous — Wed, 06 Feb 2019 19:26:34 GMT

Discover is simply telling me they don't want to do any business with me.

They keep declining me for a secured credit card.

I'm surprised and upset at the same time, because most stated it's the easiest of the big three(Discover, Citi and Capital One) to obtain.

Re: Why I Have Five Secured Credit Cards and Attempting To Get More.

dynamicvb — Wed, 06 Feb 2019 19:38:55 GMT

Most cards will not want to play when your score is still under 600. I would think if you just went with what you had, let them age and some inquiries fall and keep the utilization in check. At the same time try to work on getting the student loans taken care of( ideally rehabbed), then some time in the fall towards the end of the year you will be able to go to Discover and probably Amex( assuming you have not burned either) and get unsecured cards with a decent limit.

To each his own, but that is what I would do if I was in your situation.

Re: Why I Have Five Secured Credit Cards and Attempting To Get More.

Kree — Wed, 06 Feb 2019 20:05:48 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
many words

I also recommend looking into getting savings secured overdraft lines of credit. These don't require high scores, count as revolving, and will probably never close even if you have 0 activity for decades. Non-secured overdraft lines of credit are more common, but I don't know the score requirements.

Re: Why I Have Five Secured Credit Cards and Attempting To Get More.

Anonymous — Wed, 06 Feb 2019 22:46:12 GMT

That seems like a very detailed plan. I used to have a TD Cash Secured Card (For being a secured card it was not so bad, I have been using the rewards since then and I bank with them) that at the sixth month graduated automatically to an unsecured one. So yeah, I would say that your plan to graduate all of them is pretty good (Skipping the annual fee part)

Re: Why I Have Five Secured Credit Cards and Attempting To Get More.

RedSouljah — Thu, 07 Feb 2019 02:14:31 GMT

I so needed this thread. I have multiple late payments and have been working to improve my credit. The two cards I have aren't enough.
Thanks!

Re: Why I Have Five Secured Credit Cards and Attempting To Get More.

Anonymous — Thu, 07 Feb 2019 04:37:55 GMT

I would shop around for the best secured card to fit your needs, but please stay clear of fee-harvesters like Credit One and more.

@RedSouljah wrote:
I so needed this thread. I have multiple late payments and have been working to improve my credit. The two cards I have aren't enough.
Thanks!

Re: Why I Have Five Secured Credit Cards and Attempting To Get More.

RedSouljah — Thu, 07 Feb 2019 11:13:24 GMT

I have a Navy Federal secured and Discover It at the moment. I went the other route on my last journey. Lesson learned.