hello guys i'm new here in the great forum. I'm new immigrant in usa and starting to establish good credit here,the problem is when I try to access my annual report, I get error from both transunion and equifax. experian is ok. however I have no credit history at all. I tried to apply to capital one no hassle card and got refused. I tried at orchard bank and they offered me only secured card, I applied to it and they gave me error (unable to finalize your application) it's really weird, I get problem everytime I try to apply to a limited history/bad credit credit cards, what could be the problem, who should I call to fix this problem ? it appears the problem is from the bureaus but I'm not sure ? please help regards
If you have no credit accounts, you have no file at all. And some places won't give you a card without a credit file of some sort. As jjgross suggested, maybe your local bank or credit union can help. Sometimes putting money in a savings account and then borrowing against it will give you some history. The bank or credit union will put a freeze on the account so you can't take the money out. Then as you pay it back, they make funds available to you. You're sort of borrowing your own money, but it does give you a credit file. A secured credit card would be similar if your local bank or credit union is willing to give you one. Sometimes credit unions are easier to work with than banks.
You could also ask someone to add you to an existing revolving account as an authorized user. This would add immediate history and payment history; ergo, a 700 plus score if the utilization is less than 33% and the accounts are at least two years old. In addition, a few companies provide this for a few. Do your due diligence if you solicit any of them.
Thank you guys, you've been helpful, now I can see why I'm getting denied sometimes. However I called OrchardBank and the problem looks like Hedwig explained, there were some problem with Experian. CapitalOne unfortunately I tried to do my application again and I've been declined and have to wait for 90 days for trying to do it twice, I don't know why but it sounds stupid from them. I asked my local bank and they said I need a co-applicant with good history to get approved. I'm going to wait for the secured orchard card (hsbc) and maybe I'll add myself to someone with good utilization. Thank you for your tips again. I have one more question, how many cards do you guys suggest should I get to establish good credit (with good utilization) in short time and what is the expected amount of time to get good credit. Regards
New accounts won't do much in terms of giving you a good score. You will lack history. New accounts generally don't accrue positive results until they reach at least six months. I would speculate that you'll need to open accounts just to generate a score and even then, it'll be around a 620 to 640. Conversely, if you were added to only two accounts that were two years old your mid-score would be at least a 730. I've seen it many times and performed the same operation time and time again. I'd put a money back proviso on it.
