Went to the CU Branch and inquired about CC's (secured and unsecured) and other rebuilding options. They told me their Visa is managed be Elan Financial and that the secured cards have been more difficult to get for some folks than the unsecured. Why would that be???
They also recommended a "Share Secured" loan. I'm sure you know what it is but basically if you want a $1000 loan, you put $1000 in your savings account and they freeze those funds. They will auto draft from your checking account and the freed up principal becomes available in the savings account. The nice thing is there's NO inquiry, hard or soft, and they report to TU and EX. Plus, you're building personal credit history with the CU. They say they could care less about your scores, they want to see your history with them.
My question for the board is, is the "Share Secured" loan as good as a credit card at improving the score overall? Seems I read somewhere that it would be an installment TL instead of a revolving and it wouldn't have as much of a positive effect on the score.
Can anyone have any RECENT experience getting a secured CC? Mind sharing the info, what your score was, HP or SP, etc?
Thanks again for all your help!!!
It is ture you can get turned down for some secured cards, but there are secured cards that just about anyone can get. I think your credit union wants to sell you on the share secured loan. I don't know why. Maybe they know that their standards are high for their secured card.
They might not care about your score, but other creditors will in the future. You are correct that while a share secured loan is a positive tradeline, it is not as heavily weighted for FICO score as a revolving account like a secured card. So you want at least one revolving account. You also want to focus on tradelines that report to all three (TU, EQ, EX). Have you tried for any other secured cards? Have you tried the Capital One page where they tell you if they think you would be approved? Search the forum for threads on secured cards, there are a lot of them out there.