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

[twall06]

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. 

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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!

[Anonymous]

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.

[dynamicvb]

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. 

[Kree]

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@Anonymous wrote:

many words

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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.

[Anonymous]

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)

[RedSouljah]

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!

[Anonymous]

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.

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@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!

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[RedSouljah]

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