Secured credit card denials

[Anonymous]

Greetings fellow MyFico citizens,

This is my first post here, and I want to relate a little bit of my credit rebuilding journey for your amusement and perhaps you can give me some of your collective wisdom.  I decided to try to rebuild my credit in March, and since then have had the following, mostly unsuccessful track record.  I have 3 medical debts in collections from 2016 that I am trying to challenge or settle.

3/4/20 - denied for a Citibank secured credit card.  Hard pull on Equifax, this is listed as CBNA.

3/4/20 - approved for an OpenSky secured credit card, no hard pull.  I initially deposited $300 and later added another $200.  It has a $35 annual fee.

3/16/20 - approved for Academy Bank secured credit builder card, no hard pull.  $35 annual fee. I put down $500, and I don't think it can be raised.

4/8/20 - approved by Fingerhut for $300. Hard pull on Experian.

4/10/20 - approved for Merrick Bank secured credit card, hard pull on Transunion. $36 annual fee.  I deposited $300 and I later added another $500

4/15/20 - prequalification decline by Credit One bank for an unsecured credit card with a $99 annual fee, no hard pull.  It said my credit score was 481. 

5/14/20 - approved by CFNA/Firestone for $900, no annual fee. Hard pull on Transunion.

6/4/20 - denied for Capital One secured credit card after being pre-approved.  Hard pull on Equifax, Experian AND Transunion.

6/4/20 - prequalification decline by Discover IT for secured credit card.  No hard pull.  It said my FICO score was 604.

6/5/20 - denied for membership in State Department FCU.  I had intended to apply later for a secured card.  Hard pull on Experian.

6/22/20 - approved by Self Lender for $150/mo credit builder loan, later to turn into Self Visa.  No credit check

7/2/20 - denied for BankAmericard secured card.  Hard pull on Experian

7/7/20 - CreditKarma said I was preapproved for Mission Lane unsecured card ($59 annual fee), but I was denied with a hard inquiry to TransUnion.

So in summary, I have been denied for 5 secured credit cards and 2 bottom-feeder unsecured cards.  My TransUnion FICO score as of this moment, per MerrickBank, is 651.  To anyone who thinks it is easy to get approved for a secured card, think again, absolutely you can be declined.  Credit card companies take a perverse thrill in kicking people who are down.  I don't need Capital One in my life.  Thanks for listening.

[Anonymous]

In the end, they did you a favor by issuing the denial. No one needs that many secured cards. It has little to no benefit and just ties up your money. 

You were approved for the three cards and that's all you need to start your (re)building journey. Use them appropriate and give it some time and the results will soon be apparent. 

[Anonymous]

I want to move up to a better tier of secured credit cards.  I am very happy with OpenSky but I am not going to keep it more than one year because of the annual fee and because there is no upgrade available.  The Merrick Bank card seems better and I think it will open me up to their unsecured card in 6 months or so.  I would like to have one more good secured card, something with no annual fee with a chance to graduate.  I would like one more from the following list:  Digital Credit Union, KeyBank, FNBO, NASA FCU, Affinity.  But at this point I am gun-shy. I need to stop applying for anything for the rest of the year.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

In the end, they did you a favor by issuing the denial. No one needs that many secured cards. It has little to no benefit and just ties up your money. 

You were approved for the three cards and that's all you need to start your (re)building journey. Use them appropriate and give it some time and the results will soon be apparent. 

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+1

Too many accounts/inquiries too soon and they see this as credit seeking behavior. You should grab a couple cards (already done) and an instaplment loan (also done) and then slowly add to your profile. You have 5 revolvers and 1 installment loan right now. That is 6 new TLs in less than 4 months. That hits your scores for each new TL and lowers your AAoA.

I would garden them for a year just letting them add positive history build on your credit reports, continue cleaning up baddies, and then see where you are and if it is a good time to app for a new card.

Good luck!

[Brian_Earl_Spilner]

Welcome to the forums and sorry about the denials, but you applied for 13 accounts in a 4 month period, which also happened to be when lenders have become stricter because of the pandemic. You don't need all of those secured cards. You only need 1 and some time to build history, usually about 6-9 months, then you probably could have applied for a couple of unsecured cards.

You shot yourself in the foot by clustering apps then doing so many in a short period of time. One of the things lenders are looking closely at right now are the number of inquiries. People think they can game the system by spreading them across different bureaus, but these lenders aren't stupid. Just because they HPd EX, doesn't mean they didn't look at EQ or TU. Disco typically uses EQ for prequal and EX for approval. Chase will HP EX and SP EQ. Amex uses EX, but can look at or HP TU. Navy uses TU for approval, but EQ for everything else, including account management. At this point, you need to just step back and let everything age for about a year. You won't need anymore secured cards