If you have borderline credit then you may receive an unsecured credit card offer or two in the mail once in a while. While getting an unsecured credit card is the way to go, generally you won’t get approved for most, or even all of these. These companies send out applications automatically and getting an application in the mail has nothing to do with whether or not you’ll get approved for the card. Just keep this fact in mind before you begin filling applications and get a whole bunch of credit inquiries on your credit report, because if you have too many they will bring your score down.

A secured credit card is one that requires you to put up a cash deposit that is equal in most cases to the credit limit on your credit card. Keep in mind that this is not a prepaid debit card and the cash money you put down is nothing more than collateral against you not paying the credit card bill. If you charge up money on your card, and not pay the bill, they will still call you, turn the debt over to collections and report it as unpaid on your credit report. Plus, you will lose the money that you paid them for the deposit on the card.

The secured credit card application is very simple and most of the time the only thing that they will require for the secured credit card is you have an income and that you make the deposit. They already know that you have bad credit, but they may still pull your credit file. This is normal so expect this. However, you should browse these companies carefully because there are one or two things that you should look for when choosing a secured credit card company. They are, in order of importance, reports as a regular credit card, reports to all three bureaus and report monthly.

As you make your secured credit card list try to find companies that will report as a regular credit card. This is very important as the payments you make on a secured credit card will not be as weighty to future creditors as payments made on a regular credit card. Also, try to find one that reports to all three bureaus and not just one or two so that your rebuild efforts can have maximum effect. Lastly, you should try to find one that reports monthly to build your credit score as quickly as possible, but quarterly is okay as well.