New to country, new SSN, can't get credit - Help!

[Anonymous]

My wife has been in the United States for over two years now, has had an SSN for about the same time. She's been employed for well over year and has checking & savings accounts. Tried the Cap One credit card for US newcomers, tried to get a low limit secured credit card, tried a department store card - all denied. Can't even pull her credit from the credit agencies! We have friends that are also new to the country and they've been able to secure credit and a car loan without a problem.

Any advice or tips? I wouldn't even begin to know where to start  troubleshooting this. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Anonymous]

Welcome to the forums.

Without any accounts reporting to the CRAs, your wife will not have a report or score.  It takes 6 months of an open account to generate a FICO score.

Can you add her as AU to any of your CC?

Does she have a bank or CU she could try?

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply and tips.

I will try adding her as an AU to my current accounts. We applied for a CC at her current bank and it was denied - which is strange because she's been banking with them for almost two years.

Will post our results.

[Anonymous]

By adding her as AU to your CC she will get instant history and a score as long as they are older than 6 months.

Make sure your accounts are in good standing, no lates and low utilization.   I guess I should have asked about that before.

Did she perhaps have any CC where she came from that could be switched to the US?  There are some that allow for that.

[Anonymous]

My CC accounts are in good shape - no lates and underutilized. I am however carrying a balance, but am paying above the minimum every month. Do you think this might be detrimental?

[Anonymous]

For optimum FICO scoring, let all but one card report a 0 balance and the other at 9% or below.  You will get dinged for too many CC reporting a 0 balance or too many reporting balances.

Do you know what your overall utilization is?  Are any of the cards maxed out? 

High utilization and a maxed out card could be detrimental, yes.

[Anonymous]

I was in same boat 7 weeks ago - new ssn new to country etc.

DCU credit union set me up with my credit card and auto loan w/o any issues.  Just need to see stable job and address.  I highly recomend them, very painless.