Credit Cards and bad credit

Hi Maximman,

Your question assumes that opening a new credit card will help you rebuild. While it might do that a bit eventually, a FAR more effective strategy will be to directly address what caused the low score in the first place. For example, are your cards maxed out? If so, then paying them down BEFORE applying for new credit will likely make you eligible for much better new products than you could get today.

Generally speaking, credit unions are a great place to go if you've had spotty credit. Even if they won't give you an "unsecured" (i.e. non-prepaid) credit card up front, they may give you a secured card AND opt to convert it once your credit is better.

For background reading on issues related to this, I would direct you to the resources I just mentioned at http://www.filife.com/answers/consolidation/32 ,