Thank you poster #6. You’re the only person that has made any sense. Secured cards are the best option hands down to build credit because by putting up a deposit as collateral, your assuming the risk yourself. This is also a great way to work on credit card discipline. It’s more likely you’re going to pay on time and keep a low balance, or even paid off if you knew that your own money is on the line. Also, the best part that people fail to realize is that the deposit can double as an emergency savings fund later on when the card is upgraded for having a good payment history.

From my personal and professional experience, Bank of America is the best secured card overall. It has a low annual fee, low APR, and shortest time it takes to convert to a regular card. I went ahead and posted that link along with some others I believe will help you.

Good luck!

pre-paid credit cards will not help you build credit, check out and go under poor or no credit section, they will give you a few options to get a regular credit card.

Check out

They have a prepaid visa card that does report to the credit bureaus and their is $0 activation fee.

Ouch, some REALLY bad info here.

NO. A “prepaid” card is not going to help your credit score one bit. It’s effectively little more than a gift card with an amount of money loaded onto the card. It is not reported to the credit reporting agencies, and it simply doesn’t count as “credit”.

A “secured” card WILL help your credit score. Similar to a prepaid card, you give the issuer a deposit which they hold on to as security against credit you can then use (ie. You give them a $500 deposit, they give you a card with a $500 limit). You must make payments and pay off the balance of the card, and it is this activity that is reported to the credit reporting agencies.

Maintain the card for 6 months to a year making small purchases and paying them off on time and you should see a positive change in your credit score.

You really have alot of ways to obtain your goal get a free education here and then look into this Good Luck

yes, it counts the same as a regular c.c. try to put just gas on it and pay it off every month. it is working great for me.

Yes it will help some. First the bad news, a secured credit card is not really credit extended to you by someone else, rather it is credit that you extend to yourself in a roundabout way by giving a lender perfect 100% collateral. But if you can’t get an unsecured CC then grab it while you can because in a year or two chances are that the company that issued you this card will start to give you a little bit of unsecured credit, they might even return all of your collateral back to you and for this reason it is worth it.

Another benefit is that if you get the card converted to 100% unsecured in a year or two it will still be counted as a 2 year old account which will boost your score even more. So in other words do grab it and keep it, you need it.

Build up some collateral and borrow against it, everyones a winner.