The Two Types Of No Credit Credit Cards

I have personally had two different types of no credit check credit cards. Since opening credit card accounts is crucial to building credit, I thought that I could help a lot of people by telling a little about the cards that I was able to get with no credit.

Student Credit Cards

The first card that I was able to get with no credit was a student Visa card that I got during college. I started getting card offers in the mail and finally sent one in (today’s equivalent of accepting online). I was approved and given a card with a limit of $500. After I had that card for a few months I was offered a second card from another bank. The limit on the second card was $750.

When I got the first card, I definitely didn’t have any established credit. I think that some card companies assume that since you’re in school, your parents will be giving you money or you’ll take out loans and that allows you to make your payments.

The interest rates on my student credit cards wasn’t that great but it was definitely nice to get them without putting down a deposit. If I remember correctly, the interest rates on the cards was about 19% (the first one might have been barely over 20%).

Unfortunately, I ruined my credit with those two credit cards because I let them max out and stopped making payments. That was REALLY stupid but honestly I didn’t have the money to pay them off and this was the main reason my credit score was under 500 the first time I checked it. That meant I had to dig out of that hole and for that, I used another type of no credit credit card:

Secured Credit Cards

Since I ruined my first two credit card accounts, I no longer had the option of using student cards – I couldn’t get approved for them anymore. I needed to re-establish my credit history but it wasn’t going to be so easy. I did a ton of research and figured out that I could get a secured credit and rebuild my credit that way.

Using secured cards is a little annoying, but looking back it was worth it. It cost me $300 to get started (with secured cards you have to put down a security deposit). That security deposit becomes your credit line. You still have to pay interest but after a year of on-time payments, they’ll return your deposit.

The idea here is to use the secured card(s) to re-establish your credit history and after that you’ll start getting card offers again. For me this took about six months. After that I was able to get regular, unsecured credit cards without any trouble.

Honestly this was all a huge hassle and I wish that I had never ruined my credit. Fortunately for me, I learned from my mistakes. I now have a credit score that’s just short of 800 because I’ve been paying my bills on time and keeping my balances low on my credit card accounts.

Hopefully this lesson has helped you to learn how you can use a no credit check credit card to better your financial position. It certainly helped me.