Capital One Secured Credit Card to Improve Credit Score - Review
Capital One Secured Credit Card Benefits
Designed for consumers who want to improve credit score, the Capital One secured credit card offers three major benefits, valuable for anyone who has difficulties obtaining an unsecured credit card:
- it reports your spending activity to main credit bureaus - Equifax, Experian and Transunion.
- it allows you to track your credit activities with the free enrollment in CreditInform, which normally costs $8.99 per month.
- based on your payment and credit history, you may also have your credit line increased - often in $100 increments - without putting additional security deposit.
Let's Review Who Needs this Card
The Capital One secured credit card helps improve credit when other means are not readily available. It is also proven to accomplish it quite fast as long as you use the card properly. If your credit score is in low 600s or you
- have been 90 days and more late on a credit card, medical bill, or loan payment in the last 12 months,
- have declared bankruptcy or defaulted on a loan more than once,
- have been declined for a credit card in the last 3 months,
then the secured MasterCard from Capital One can fit into your financial and credit situation.
Capital One Secured MasterCard Review
It is important to notice in this review, that Capital One requires a very reasonable security deposit to get a minimum $200 line of credit, and even allows you to transfer balances with no transfer fees.
Depending on your credit history, you may have to only deposit $49 or $99 to get a $200 credit limit. If your credit score and history are really bad, the full $200 deposit will be required to secure $200 credit limit. The maximum credit limit on this Capital One secured credit card is currently $3,000 and required substantial security deposit, in vicinity of at least $2,700.
The annual interest rate on purchases and balance transfers is variable 22.9%. You will also have annual fee of $29 which is lower than those of some unsecured credit cards, late payment fee of $19 and returned payment fee which can be as high as $35.
You may wonder why would you transfer any amount on the secured credit card with such a high interest rate. It may sense if you have other loans with higher interest rates or if you want to lower credit utilization ratio on your other revolving accounts to improve credit score.
Unlike some other secured credit cards used to rebuild credit score, the Capital One MasterCard doesn't offer a reward program. And of course, putting a security deposit doesn't allow you to skip your minimum monthly payment. You can't afford to miss a minimum payment or be late, even once.
With the interest rate of 22.9% making only minimum payments will be expensive, especially if you have a high balance. Use this Capital One secured credit card to improve credit and eventually obtain an unsecured one with no annual fee and low interest rate. Apply here.
Also remember, you have alternatives - you can use Wells Fargo secured Visa or Orchard Bank secured credit card to build credit.
If you live in Asia, then HSBC secured credit cards for bad credit consumers offer some of the best reward programs.
Thu Dec 29, 2011 01:12PM | Copyright: www.bad-credit-advisor.com | More in Credit Repair Tips | Comments (0)
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