JimmA

Ok, here's a new update on this card.

I gave these guys a glowing review when I got this card over 2 years ago and have been a perfect customer - $1500 balance, small monthly purchases paid in full as soon as the charges post.

Never had any problems with this card until now.

Originally this card was the best - low interest & no annual fee.  But the physical bank itself was closed in August 2011 and the new owners don't look very consumer friendly.  The new card has some fees etc that put that card more in the predatory lender category.

  They said that my card would stay the same, but this morning - 2/3/12 the Mint app on my phone notified me of a $50 fee on this account, I hope this is a mistake.  The nature of this card is to rebuild or build good credit, I wonder how many people with my card will be caught unawares by a $50 charge on their account and get a ding on their credit because of this?

I'll see monday whether this charge is a mistake or if they are changing the cardholder agreement.  Nice timing that this charge is posted on a weekend so their customer service is closed.

 I did it in one month.  In January of this year I applied for a new car loan after my old car died.  I paid for my last car with cash and haven't had any credit cards (or need for them, I thought) I have had a car loan that was paid in full and never late 6 years ago.  When they pulled my credit they said I had zero credit, no new loans or anything else in the past 2 years. 

I began to educate myself and found my Credit Karma score was 565. I got a $1500 secured card from Public Savings Bank and the next month it went up to 654.  I also got a $200 card from Orchard Bank the following month and it went up a few more points and has been slowly rising since.  In April I financed a new car much nicer than the one I originally looked at.  The finance manager said I had good credit then just not much substance behind it.  I have found with a little experimenting that going over 30% of your available credit will drop it significantly, about 30 points in my case, but paying it off brings it right back up.  The best scores I've had were when I kept it as low as possible 1 or 2% but not zero.  I do this by buying a tank of gas with both cards and then paying them off every month. Use the tools and info here on Credit Karma ro help you meet your goals.   Good luck.

If it's an old debt they are not allowed to change the date or start it over, no matter what they say or do, this is called re-aging.  You can dispute it and have it corrected to the original date.

Also hard credit inquiries have to be authorized by you seeking credit, anything else should be a soft inquiry and does not affect your credit score.

You want to keep in mind that it isn't good to carry a balance of more than 30% of the available credit on any card, higher percentages will lower your score.

 Just charging a few dollars every month and paying it off every month will show activity and a positive payment history and will raise your score over time.

It's a good idea when buying a car, even if you have the cash, to finance part of it and pay it off over time to get a better mix of credit.  Another idea is to take out a personal loan for a small amount and pay that off over time, you don't even have to spend it, just deposit it into an interest bearing account,

The key is to not overspend, to stay within you budget, make on time payments and not use credit cards for larger purchases, the interest is usually higher and if you go above the 30% mark it affects your credit negatively.

Most report monthly to the credit bureaus, so generally it will take a month depending on the day they report, possibly two months if the change occurs just after the day they do. 

What's the difference between this and the other secured card from Public Savings Bank?

You do realize that applying for credit lowers your credit score and stays on your report for 2 years. Reapplying for a card that you have been denied without a significant increase in your score is a waste of time. You are better off putting money aside and getting a secured card if you want to raise your credit score.

Check out the credit report card and credit advice articles on this web site to find ways to improve your credit.

Also go to annualcreditreport.com (the government mandated one and the only real free credit report site) and and get your free credit reports from all three credit bureaus.

I think the majority of it was the card. When I applied for an auto loan the last week of December, I was turned down because of no open credit accounts. At that point I decided to educate myself and remedy the situation. I was told to apply for a secured card to show some open credit. I had two paid off auto loans, but only the most recent shows up on all three reports and they are closed accounts.
There were also some old, small, mostly medical collections on there, which I disputed and all but three of those was removed. I disputed the items with two of the three bureaus and recently just sent out a dispute to the third, but my score had also gone up with that bureau (the one my dispute has not yet reached) about 90 points with just the card.

With a few months of responsible use and timely payments I'm sure my score will go up much more.

I've just recieved my Public Savings Bank Visa a few weeks ago and it has already showed up on my Credit report.

I used it for a few small purchases ($42 on $1500 limit)and have already paid it off, although the payment hasn't register on my report yet.

My CK score has gone up almost 100 points since last month, thanks to this card and disputing items on my credit report.

You want to have good credit utilization to build up better credit. This is ideally under 30% of your available credit, even better would be around 10%. So, for example, if you wanted to charge $100 a month you would want a limit on that line of credit to be at least about $350 to be under 30% utilization or even better $1000 limit to be at 10% utilization. Going over these limits is not good for your credit and using closer to the limit is actually harmful to it.

The Orchard Bank secured card has a decent interest rate and lower fees than most. (no application fee and the annual fee of $35 is waived the first year) It's actually a pretty good deal. I have this one and the Public Savings Bank secured Visa. If you are looking to build or rebuild your credit and not just looking for free money, these are the way to go. If you do find better offers please let us know, but I haven't seen any yet. Make sure you read all the terms and conditions on other offers as well. They may look good at first, but there are usually lots of extra fees attached.

1st Premier has some of the worst terms out there (some have low interest rates but the high fees more than make up for that), even at a higher interest rate the Orchard Bank card is better.

I had one other question about this card.

About the credit limit above $4,999, as stated in the terms:

"for balances up to $4,999 the credit limit will be equal to the amount of your security deposit. For balances between $5000-$10,000: your credit limit will be reduced by 10% of your security deposit (Example: If you have a security deposit of $10,000, your credit limit will be $9,000)"

So According to this up to $4999 security deposit my available credit is $4999 (100% of the deposit). Does that mean that at $5000 funded my available credit is is reduced to $4500 (reduced by 10% of the total deposit)?

If this is the case $4999 would probably be the maximum I would want to eventually fund on this card even though I would like to keep my utilization at about 10% of my limit.

This is a bit of an odd term, what is the reasoning behind it?

Other than that it seems like a good, long term secured card because of the no fees other than the $75 app fee and because of the decent APR.

Almost $120 dollars a year to keep this one.
No thanks!

I checked this one out too, when it was reviewed as a number one pick on another site. When I checked it out the terms for the card had changed from those on the reviewing site. Initially it looked better, but then I saw all the details on the terms link (which is on the second page and very small, the fees are horrible. If you plan on running a large balance on the card from month to month, it may not be too bad at the 0% interest, but that won't help people build credit up as quickly as charging 10-30% of the available balance and paying it off will (no interest fees anyway if you use it that way). If you need a secured card to build credit try Public Savings or Orchard, they have considerably better terms that are clearly spelled out.

Keep in mind, if you want to build good credit, you don't want to max out your credit line. Keep your balances below 30% or better around 10% of your available credit.

That's not right, if it's the same debt it has to be removed 7 years after it was reported 180 days delinquent. That's the law. It can not be sold and re-aged.
Dispute it and possibly look at getting a laywer if they won't remove it.

I have heard two schools of thought on this, one says to use up to 30% of your credit limit every month and pay it off another says that, in order to increase your score faster, you need to carry a balance on your cards, which is correct?

After applying for a new car loan and discovering I had a 0 credit score (No open credit lines) I was told to apply for a secured card so I could have a score to be able to qualify for a loan.

I have had two paid auto loans that were never late, the last one was paid off 2006. The last car I bought I paid $18,000 cash for 2 years ago.

I researched secured cards and this one seemed like it had the best long term possibilties for building and maintaing an open credit history with no fees other than the initial $79 application fee, $25 credit line increase and it has a decent APR.

I wired my app through my bank this morning, I was a little irritated that the E-check option was disabled so I ended up just going to my bank to wire my $1500 deposit(costing me another $25).

How easy is it to set up monthly auto payments to avoid being late or pay online with debit cards or E-check?