It is exceptionally rare that any CCC would issue you credit without first doing a pull of your CR.
Prohibiting a CCC from doing a credit pull would almost certainly put your application in their circular file.
You can expect, as common business practice, an inquiry for your CR.
Where CCCs differ is on how they code their inquiries.
The FCRA only regulates the authority to pull your CR, and an application for new credit clearly gives them that authority.
The FCRA does not regulate how the inquiry is then coded for FICO scoring purposes. Some codes are ignored by FICO in their immediate scoring (so-called "soft pulls"), while others are coded such that FICO considers them in your scoring for up to one year (so-called "hard pulls).
If it is a secured card, then their risk is lower, so they may aggree to only code it as a soft pull.
Having said all of that, I agree that without establishing revolving credtit as early as possible, you will never achieve any significant FICO boosts.
The impact or each new hard inq is, at the most, approx 10 pts, and goes away after one year.
I advise to put the impact of inquiies on the back burner, and estblish revolving credit.
