A Guaranteed Alternative: Secured Cards.
Due to many of my students having some problems with the shopping cart trick, I have decided to do several episodes explaining what to do when the shopping cart trick fails. There’s many alternatives out there and in fact you really should be using all the alternatives all at the same time for best results.
To Access the ULTIMATE Credit Repair Course Material:
Click HERE to Access the ULTIMATE Credit Repair Course! >
To Access the Free Webinar:
Click HERE to see the FREE Webinar! >
To Access the FREE LIST:
Click HERE for the FREE LIST! >
Review of The Shopping Cart Trick
I’m not going to spend much time on the shopping cart trick, in fact what I’m going to do is send you to the article called Shopping Cart Trick 2020 which will go over the directions in GREAT detail. However, I would like to go over the basic steps of it really quickly just to make sure you guys are doing that part right and then will look at the alternatives.
The shopping cart trick, also known as the soft pull trick, is a neat little Tactic that allows people with bad credit to potentially, get a credit card. The shopping cart trick relies on the fact that many websites will pre-approve you for a credit card during the checkout process without actually checking your score. This means you can get a card without a “hard pull”.
Y’all will remember that I discussed the differences between hard and soft pulls in another episode. AND, while there or NO guarantees, it also means you can still get a card with bad credit. If there’s a trick at all to the shopping cart trick is this: were going to try to avoid hard inquiries on your credit report. If they ask you to enter your whole social security number, and not just the last 4, then it will most likely be a hard inquiry. The hard inquiry is one of the things were going to try and avoid.
Let’s go over the steps really quick, just make sure y’all are doing it right.
First and most important you need to make sure that you opted in to Offers. Go to OptOutPrescreen.com and be sure that you are opted in. If you’re not opted in your knocking to get any offers whatsoever.
Don’t Be A Sniper – Use A Shotgun
Folks, there is NO REASON to depend on the Shopping cart trick. Its like going to the races or the casino, you might win, and you might even win big, but you might also spend a whole bunch of time with absolutely NO results. Lets talk for a moment about something where I can Guarantee the results…Secured Credit Cards. There are MANY banks that use this tool and can provide you with a card.
Sure you will have to have some money up front. Sure you will have to pay some fees. Sure you will have high interest. But lets consider a few things. If you have bad credit or no credit, you are pretty much stuck…at least n the United states you are, right? You can spend the next 2 or 3 months scouring the internet for the folks who will give you a freebie – meaning the shopping cart trick or you can ante up, stop looking for a handout, and make your goals and aspirations happen. After all, its YOUR life isn’t it? Shouldn’t YOU be the one in control?
Think of it another way. Client A spends three months playing around with the Shopping Cart Trick, and maybe, maybe not gets a card. In the meantime, he spends several hours a night scouring the web, getting stressed out and not accomplishing much. He is like a sniper. He is spending a tremendous amount of time setting up the shot, but you never know when the wind is going to change, or the target is going to move or whatever else might happen. Client B, takes my advice and uses other means like secured cards as well as other tactics I teach in my credit repair course to start building credit TODAY. He is using a shotgun. All he has to do is point himself in the general direction and pull the trigger. He is BOUND to hit something no matter what. Three months down the road, client A is still sitting at a 550 credit score because he has accomplished exactly zip and client B has raised their score by 100 points just from taking action with multiple tactics, one of them being Secured Cards.
Use a Shotgun guys.
Secured Cards VS Unsecured Cards
The US economy is largely run on credit. Money is no longer a hard commodity like it may have been prior to 1971 when we went off the Gold Standard. No country uses Gold or any other precious material to back their money any longer and some economist say that is part of the reason why money has become increasingly more volatile over the years.
The difference between a secured credit card and unsecured credit card is right there in the name. unsecured credit cards are the standard style credit card used by most folks with decent credit scores. Unsecured credit cards are riskier of course then a secured card and therefore the interest rates tend to be higher. However, unsecured credit cards don’t cost you anything whereas the secured card has got several ways it’s going to cost you money.
A secured card is different because you have to deposit money into some sort of savings account in order to use the card and even then, the bank will only allow you to charge a percentage of your deposit. When your credit score is low the limit may be as low as 50% of what you have any account. As your credit score improves the bank may or may not increase your limit.
The good news about a secured credit card is that pretty much anybody can get one even if you had a bankruptcy, You should have a fairly easy time getting secured card in that there is little to no risk for the bank. Also secured cards are an excellent way to get credit started when you have none for a variety of reasons. Not only will it help a young or new consumer establish credit, but it will also show them how to live within a budget in that Limits will be pretty strictly observed with secured cards. If you reach your limit, a secured card typically will not let you go over that limit it will simply decline it. Sometimes unsecured cards will let you go over your limit and just charge you an extra fee for having gone over.
Finally, the jury’s out on whether a secured card or an unsecured card is better in terms of credit Bureau reporting and an overall credit score. Generally, a secured card is going to be a lower limit card and your total credit is always going to be a factor in your score. You certainly want more credit than less credit if you want high score. That would lead one to believe that a secured card is not as good. However, if you have a non-secured card and you always carry a balance, even if the credit limit is higher, that still not going to be as good as a secured card that you pay off each month. As a credit repair and credit building teacher I am a big fan of secured credit cards for both newbies and for those having to start over.
How It Works
Secured credit cards are easy and most of the companies that offer unsecured credit cards also offer a secured version. I recommend working with those folks and your local bank first because typically after you’ve proven yourself for some period of time with secured card they can turn around and give you an unsecured card without too much hassle through a process they call a conversion. Sometimes without even a hard inquiry.
The steps are pretty much as follows. You make a deposit they give you a card and your limit is based on the deposit. If you fail to pay on time, they will simply take the money out of the account that you offer as security. You will have no access to the account typically while you have any sort of a balance on the credit card.
Typically there’s yearly or monthly fees but honestly if you look around you can find secured cards that have no annual fee, and even if there is a fee there’s plenty of them out there so you shouldn’t pay more than $50 as an annual fee.
And finally, be sure that they report because not all credit card companies report to the credit bureaus. You deftly want to do that before you sign up with any company.
A Word About Prepaid Cards
At first glance a prepaid card also called prepaid debit card might seem like a good way to go.
Here’s the problem with prepaid cards, there really just a debit card meaning you’re using your own money to make the purchases not borrowed money from an issuer. You put money on the card then you use the card, simple as that.
Since these cards don’t extend credit that activity of buying and selling that you’re doing is not reported to credit bureaus therefore it cannot help you build credit history.
- Prepaid debit cards typically also have fees that secured cards do not have.
- Due to pin numbers they tend to get hacked easily and unlike a credit card there’s no financial recourse
- Generally speaking there are ripoff, and I don’t recommend them
Using a Secured Card Effectively
Although they require deposits into some sort of an account, secured credit cards are an awesome tool for rebuilding or starting credit. the trick to using a secured card effectively is simply the same as using any other credit effectively.
Use it sparingly. Don’t run it up to the limit every month.
Pay the balance in full every month before the due date. Most often this will mean that you didn’t pay any interest in interest is what affects your standard of living.
If it has the ability to build the limit by adding more money to the account, then do so every month as you can.
After approximately six months, if you’ve paid on time, you can ask the issuer about upgrading to an unsecured card. Sometimes it can take about a year, but if you been paying on time six months would be a good time to start calling them.
To Access the ULTIMATE Credit Repair Course Material:
Click HERE to Access the ULTIMATE Credit Repair Course! >
To Access the Free Webinar:
Click HERE to see the FREE Webinar! >
To Access the FREE LIST:
Click HERE for the FREE LIST! >
