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Credit building loans only work if a person has no open installment accounts of any kind. If that is true, we recommend the Share Secure Loan Technique. It would be a good deal better than what you mention. You can find out about it here and only need to read the first 2-3 posts:
There's no reason to consider the SSL technique vs. a secure card as an either-or proposition. Both can be smart moves with both helping. Do you have any credit cards?
Hi there,
I'm the CEO and co-founder @ self lender. One of things that's special about what we do is that we give everyone free credit monitoring — so, each month, we can track our customers' progress as they repay their credit builder accounts. I'm not going to make a sales pitch and so I'd recommend doing some research on how other self lender customers have been impacted. Some of them are on this forum.
Some of the drawbacks of self lender are: 1) if you don't repay your account, then you will damage your credit and 2) you have to spend $594 over 12 months for your CD to unlock with $550 (plus $0.55 of interest). So, it's not free.
My suggestion: if you can afford to do both a secured credit card and self lender, you may want to consider doing both.
Warm regards,
James
Glad you are with us, James!
Thanks James. Can Self Lender boost scores for people who already have installment loans, such as car loans or a loan with a finance company, or is it basically a way to establish a installment loan on your credit report if you don't already have access to one?
I opened a self lender account and I have other installments, student loans, car loan. It did raise my score about 15 points, I just needed more payment history on my reports that is why I opened it.
and as they say YMMV, every credit profile is different.
@Anonymous wrote:Thanks James. Can Self Lender boost scores for people who already have installment loans, such as car loans or a loan with a finance company, or is it basically a way to establish a installment loan on your credit report if you don't already have access to one?
My opinion here, which may be borderline fact, is that something like Self Lender will have ZERO score boost to anyone that already possesses an open installment loan on their credit report when considering FICO scoring. I have a feeling CGID will agree with this. If anyone disagrees, I'd certainly like to hear their reason(s) as to why.
I will be making my final payment on a self lender loan this December. I have done a lot to my profile over the last year, so I cant say that this has helped me specifically. However a positive tradeline is always good! They give you a vantage 3.0 credit score which is ok ish and they have some credit alerts. That being said Credit Karma is a better user interface that provides the same info. The Selflender product is excellent so not too much thought should be given on the credit scoring that they give. It would be nice if they had true Fico scores, but they do not do that as of now.
I am not sure how the certificate is cashed in at the end, will find out soon. The FAQ on their site doesnt appear to have info on it. I will be chatting with them soon to find out.
Beside the Vantage score.. the only gripe if you want to call it that, is the backend website is semi dated and not intuitive to use. Because of the vantage score and limited account and credit report information, there is no real need to login and check anything. Sooo
and thats about it.