What exactly is a poor credit credit card and who can quality for one? Well first, know that in today’s financial market, there are many options for those with a poor credit score because there are more consumers than ever before that have a bad credit history and therefore there have been many lenders and credit card companies popping up everywhere to service these type of consumers. So, don’t give up hope if you need a credit card and have bad credit because its entirely possible that you will be able to find a company that will issue you a credit card even with a bad credit history.

The first thing that you’ll need to know about credit cards for poor credit is what they can do for you. A credit card usually reports once every three months or sometimes every six months and each good payment that you make with the credit card company will be reported. This means that just a few months of good payments can raise your credit score considerably, particularly if you have a history of bad credit that is a year old or old, by this I mean the date of last activity not the date that the account was opened.

The most popular types of credit cards for bad credit are the secured cards. A secured credit card will give you a line of credit that is equal to the amount that you deposit with the company, which can be as little as two hundred dollars. Then you will use the credit card just as you would a regular credit card, paying off whatever you charge to the card each month within the grace period. Don’t confuse this with a pre-paid debit card, the money that you deposit isn’t yours to spend, it is to give you a line of credit to use. However, if you pay your credit card payments on time for a year, your cash will generally then be returned to you.

One thing that you should make sure of about this bad credit credit card is that it reports as a regular credit card. By this I mean that you don’t want a credit listing on your report that says secured credit card because that won’t do you much good. Also, make sure that your card reports to at least two of the three credit bureaus but all three would be the most helpful. Ask these questions up front before you get bad credit credit approval through one of these companies and sign up for your card, because you’ll want to know these facts to build your credit the most successfully.

If you have borderline bad credit, or if you have no credit then you might even be able to apply for a regular credit card. This is for sure the case when you have no credit whatsoever, and sometimes the case when you have bad credit, either a small amount or very very old bad credit. However, the credit limit that you get will be very small, often just a couple of hundred dollars until the credit card company sees that you are able to handle the responsibility of a small credit limit and either raises it automatically, or raises it when you request it.