topic Re: Rebuilding-Opening a Secured Card in Rebuilding Your Credit

Rebuilding-Opening a Secured Card

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Jan 2019 13:12:59 GMT

I was told opening a secured card could help credit score overtime. Couple questions here. If I were to get a approved, let’s say a secure Discover card, how many points would I get hit? And If I were to auto pay a monthly bill like Hulu using this card, how many points would I see a month by doing this?

Re: Rebuilding-Opening a Secured Card

tparks5961 — Thu, 03 Jan 2019 16:05:23 GMT

Hey my friend welcome to the forums!

There is no cookie cutter formula in determining how different things will affect your credit score.

You should provide more information to the group so that you can get the most accurate projections.

Include if you can the following:

Current Credit scores

Any accounts in collections/Charge-offs

Credit Card Utilization

Total number of revolving accounts

Someone may have something close to your profile and be in a better position to help you.

Re: Rebuilding-Opening a Secured Card

thornback — Thu, 03 Jan 2019 16:24:52 GMT

If you have no open revolving accounts, then you are losing out on points for "no revolving credit usage". FICO will reward you with the opening of your first credit card but will ding you a bit for any subsequent cards until you build up a solid AAoA (average age of accounts). How many points you'll get for adding a card is anyone's guess as it is profile specific. For instance - I gained approx 30 points when I added my first revolving account, but I've seen reports of others gaining a bit more / less. After that, consistent on-time payments and low utilization while allowing that new account to age will yield a few more points over the first year. After the account reaches 12 months, you'll see another decent boost.

Eventually, you'll want a minumum of 3 revolving accounts and 1 installment account for optimum scoring. The trick is adding accounts without doing too much damage to your AAoA and keeping your number of inquiries low -- slow and steady.

Also, I'd suggest you do as @tparks5961 said and list the details of your credit report for additional, more case-specific advice.

Re: Rebuilding-Opening a Secured Card

DIYcredit — Sat, 05 Jan 2019 09:17:47 GMT

I agree, but I would just like to add that you don't need 3 cc's and an installment loan to get a high Fico score you can do that with a long cc history.

Re: Rebuilding-Opening a Secured Card

Joecooltech — Sat, 05 Jan 2019 17:37:46 GMT

Time unfortunately is gonna be your best friend and no quick fix here. I would say get one secured credit card a maybe if you can do a couple of shopping card tricks to add some retail cards not a lot you don't end up with a lot of little credit lines that might be your best bet.

Re: Rebuilding-Opening a Secured Card

Brooklyn2018 — Sat, 05 Jan 2019 18:05:39 GMT

@OP

@Joecooltech

Do not bother with the SCT it is dead. There is a thread with confirmed info on receiving a HP if attempting the SCT. Be careful going that route.

It is, and probably always will be, just guesses(some close-some not so close) as to how many points anyone will gain when opening any account. As stated above...it’s profile specific.
Adding some DP will help determine which type of Secured Card you’ll most likely be approved for. Not all Secured cards are created equal. Some are AF free and some aren’t. Some graduate and most do not. Some will reward you and some will just become an anchor.
You can try all the pre-qual sites for now and see what you come away with as far as offers go.
IMHO, Discover will probably be you BEST choice if you can be approved. If you are offered anything I would jump on that card.-In time will graduate and grow if treated right.
JMHO...I would be selective and play it smart. Don’t app to just get credit cards—Get the RIGHT credit cards that will be useful and have potential to be Great cards.

Best of Luck!👍

😊

Re: Rebuilding-Opening a Secured Card

calyx — Sat, 05 Jan 2019 18:14:18 GMT

FICO doesn't give you points/month, but you do get points for milestones on time (age of oldest account, age of newest account, average age of accounts), so please don't think you are going to get a certain amount every month.

As others have said, we need more complete look at your credit profile to see where we can help.

Managing credit well will make any dings in inquiries go away, and accounts aging ("gardening") and increasing positive payment history will reverse any age related account dings.

The three cards aren't necessary, but will optimize your FICO scoring, and if possible, I suggest getting secured cards that graduate from non-predatory lenders (Discover, Citi, etc.) so you can keep them longer (thereby increasing your aggregate ages). I also suggest putting as much money as possible as a deposit, so that when they graduate, you will have better starting limits. The *only* reason to get store cards (suggested above) is if you will use their discounts, otherwise they won't do you any good (and people have postulated that too many will look bad upon manual review by underwriters). The "shopping cart trick" doesn't work any more (where you get cards with soft-pulls), and unless there's a benefit for you, it seems ill-advised to take the hard-pulls just for a tiny bit of credit.

Re: Rebuilding-Opening a Secured Card

Anonymous — Sat, 05 Jan 2019 19:05:09 GMT

Hi,
Where should I grab my credit profile from, a recent report from myfico or a report from transunion online? Ya Im thinking of Discover but thinking how much I should deposit and how many points it’ll ding me

Re: Rebuilding-Opening a Secured Card

Anonymous — Sat, 05 Jan 2019 19:22:49 GMT

Brooklyn,

Know any pre-approval legit websites for secured Discover? That will tell me what I’m pre-approved for without hitting score

Re: Rebuilding-Opening a Secured Card

Anonymous — Sat, 05 Jan 2019 19:35:50 GMT

Do you also know if Discovers free online preapproval tool will also give secured card (discover) option if Im approved?

Re: Rebuilding-Opening a Secured Card

calyx — Sat, 05 Jan 2019 19:40:21 GMT

Credit Karma is good for the credit report portion for Equifax and Transunion - IGNORE those scores.
You can also go to Experian.com for your Experian information

Discover pre-qual is here, they will give you all of the cards (unsecured and secured) that you pre-qualify for with a SP, you would get your hardpull after actually applying: https://www.discovercard.com/application/prequal?ICMPGN=PUB_HDR_CARDS_PQ

Re: Rebuilding-Opening a Secured Card

Anonymous — Sat, 05 Jan 2019 19:43:34 GMT

Ok, thanks for that!

Re: Rebuilding-Opening a Secured Card

Anonymous — Sat, 05 Jan 2019 20:02:11 GMT

If I put $1000 lets say in sec dsicover will that determine if Im approved or not or will discover give me the secured limit Im approved for?

Re: Rebuilding-Opening a Secured Card

calyx — Sat, 05 Jan 2019 20:27:00 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
If I put $1000 lets say in sec dsicover will that determine if Im approved or not or will discover give me the secured limit Im approved for?

I don't believe that the amount you are willing to deposit impacts your odds of approval.
Whatever amount you deposit, will be your limit.
With an account in good standing, Discover will review and start looking at automatically graduating your card at 7months, and they tend to be pretty generous with their CLIs, though, so the more you can deposit, the better.

(And, of course, it actually gives you rewards, unlike most secured cards)

Re: Rebuilding-Opening a Secured Card

Anonymous — Sat, 05 Jan 2019 20:32:26 GMT

Oh, ok, sounds good. I’ll look into it, apply for it when I have that money ready. Thanks again

Re: Rebuilding-Opening a Secured Card

Brooklyn2018 — Sat, 05 Jan 2019 21:15:54 GMT

+1@calyx

@OP

The minimum deposit for DISCO secured is $200. Always remember that anything you attempt to request with any cc is always going to be “upon approval.” Also, you can fund the DISCO with the $200 to START and then when more money becomes available you can ADD to in as a CLI. That’s just another great advantage of the DISCO Secured Card is you can add your own CLI’s over time upto $2,500(“upon approval”) So, you can start with just $200 just to get things roll’n in a positive direction and add later on if you want more spending power. Either way, it’s an EXCELLENT secured card to have to start building/rebuilding as was mentioned by others, as well as, the couple of other cards.
IMHO, if you’ve got the funds to start and get approved for the DISCO(?) I would get it started...even with the minimum. and add later. JMHO of course. YMMV

Good Luck👍

😊

Re: Rebuilding-Opening a Secured Card

Anonymous — Sat, 05 Jan 2019 22:20:20 GMT

I wonder if online Disco allows credit card to be used for the $200, because if yes I can do it later this month after myfico updates

Re: Rebuilding-Opening a Secured Card

Brooklyn2018 — Sat, 05 Jan 2019 22:25:27 GMT

You cannot fund a security deposit for a cc with another cc card OR a payment for that matter. Some cc’s require either checking, savings, money order and the likes.

Re: Rebuilding-Opening a Secured Card

Anonymous — Sat, 05 Jan 2019 22:25:09 GMT

Oh.. How would I do it then online?

Re: Rebuilding-Opening a Secured Card

Anonymous — Sat, 05 Jan 2019 22:25:31 GMT

Fund the cc that is