@Anonymous wrote:Hi,
I'm a foreign national High-Tech professional working for the Finance Technology Industry in NYC. I came to the country with a work visa.
I opened a bank account in Chase, where my monthly salary (which is good) gets deposited each month. After a year of savings I asked my account manager to apply for a Chase Sapphire for me (I know, naive , misinformed or maybe just plain stupid) it got denied.
After doing some research I found out that credit score is a pain for people with no credit history no matter if they were never in debt and they have a steady income and savings. After reading some expat blogs I found that the way to go was to open a Secured Capital One credit card and start taking it from there.
Instead of just applying online I went to a Capital One branch and opened a checkings account so the branch itself could apply for me for the Secured card (I thought it would help).
I just got a letter saying that my Capital One Secured Master card was declined because all from all 3 credit bureaus my information is missing or unavailable.
Key factors that adversely affected my credit score: "Score not available, insufficient or unknown credit history¨
I went to the branch to explain my case, I could pay any fee they would like and deposit any amount they need for the card, but they said that they could not do nothing about it. That I got it denied because I do not have any credit history as I have never ever had any form of credit, so the score agencies have nothing and unless I changed that, it would keep getting rejected if I reapply.
I THOUGHT TO BUILD CREDIT HISTORY FROM SCRATCH WAS THE WHOLE POINT OF THE CAP 1 SECURED CREDIT CARD!!
What should I do now, any advice to build some sort of credit score when the Cap 1 secured credit card is denied? Where should I go from here? What do people in my situation do? I would like to have a credit score to be able to rent my own apartment at some point. Is it possible for cases like mine?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks guys.
Maybe you could try their Capital One Newcomer's card? it's made specifically for those who have moved to the country and have little to no credit history 
I would try online, too, for it seems the applying in branch isn't helping you 
Otherwise, the people of the board will speak their word. Usually the Capital One secured is one of the easiest to obtain, so not sure what happened with that :/ bank of america and wells fargo secured are usually harder to qualify for than the Cap One one.
You could also try Fingerhut to begin building credit! Or a personal loan through a bank/credit union. Otherwise, I am at a loss
You could ask your bank to put your money into a CD and use that to secure a personal loan.
*8/10/13