You need the credit? Why not use debit cards. No interest.
MC:
There are tons of credit cards available that are technically unsecured, but also make you pay things called, variously, Enrollment Fees, Start-up Fees, and/or ProcessingFees, above and beyond the fairly standard Annual Fee.
The second you get the card, it already has $150-200 on it which you are paying back with interest, which on these cards is usually high - over 20%.
I got offers for these cards when I had made about six payments on my car, so that’s a good measuring stick.
The limit is not usually above $1,000 and often in the $250-500 area.
The first card I got had a $250 limit, was charged with $200 right off the bat and had a $5 monthly Participation Fee as well!
Yep… It wasn’t a credit card… It was a bill!
But I sucked it up, and a year later I have some better cards and that one is cancelled.
There are tons of places which will offer you cards like this, even without making car payments like I am. Check any search engine for “Credit Cards” and you’ll find them.
I handle my credit cards the same way as Stark. I only keep two cards though, a Discover and a MasterCard, that pays to me in cash up to 1% of purchases. Since its only “up to”, there is some complicated formula they use, so the actual % is small. But since I use the cards A LOT, the cash back is nice to see.
Since I have 0 balance on credit cards, you won’t believe the offers I get all the time! I have no trouble upping my limits whenever I want, but I try to keep it low.
A long time ago, I had to purchase 3 IBM AT’s from IBM Retail for my company. I charged $10K+ (that’s a LONG time ago!) in one shot on AmEx. A couple of weeks later, someone called trying to get me to sign on to some investment deal they have. So I asked how they got to me. Well, it was apparent that because of my purchase, they thought that I have $1M in assets. Great feeling, but alas, not true!
As far as the original post is concerned, I think SATAN should get rid of his current cards completely. That means live on cash for a while. Wait till the expiration of all the cards passes. Call up the card companies and tell them that you will not use their cards anymore and please CANCEL. Cut up any cards that they send. Then get a credit report from all three rating companies and call them to let them know that you now have no more of those bad cards, so please correct the info. This way, you start clean. Any bank looking at this will now be more inclined to give you credit.
I also think that most banks are really lax about offering credit to anyone now. This is because they work on percentages. They WANT you to go on credit and not pay it back on time. This way they will get their 20% interest. Now a certain percentage will fail to pay at all. But because everything is stacked against the consumer, they will wind up making so much more money from the ones that pay the interest year after year. The deliquents they send to COLLECTION in order to get a % back anyway!
When I first wanted to get credit I was only 18.
I went to JC Penny, they gave anyone a card.
Then the oil companies they are good for that too.
Then Citibank.
But like you the Visa and Mastercard were really low limits THEN I discovered how to get them to raise them.
Use the card BUT DON’T pay the card off in full at the end of the month like I was doing. I bought something big and divided it up into 3 payments. (True I paid more with interest) but after 3 months my limit went from $300 to $600. Then I did that again. Soon it was over a thousand, after that I had no trouble getting unsecured cards for $5,000.
The TRICK is once you get the big limits go back to paying off your balance every month.
awww baby Ill help you any way I can 
not that I myself am in the best situation to lol, but do know I would gladly do anything for you…love ya
It worries me that Satan can’t get credit. Wasn’t there some line about “giving the devil his due”? ;(
FYI, Satan, and this is Triangle-local, I’m given to understand that First Citizens is fairly liberal with credit compared to some of the others. Haven’t tried it myself, so I dunno, but I thought I’d pass that on.
Speaking as a veteran of a trade association, here’s why we took credit cards.
-
It’s easier and faster to get $$ from a company if the employee puts the dues/registration fee/book order on the Corporate Amex than to deal directly with their accounting dept. I believe the phrase easier to beg forgiveness than get permission applies in many of these cases. Hey, not our problem.
-
Phone orders and website orders
-
You would not believe how many people will not order if they can’t get those frequent flyer miles or whatever at the same time. (There’s a message there.)
-
And on the other side, we used to pay (for all I know they still do) five figure invoices with the no-limit card, 'cause 30 days of interest on that amount of $$ is appreciable. Naturally, we always paid in full each month.
-
We would have loved to dump Amex (Visa/ MC take their share, but Amex takes a bite. Time has dimmed my memory of the exact percentages. However, while I’m sure there is a Corporate Visa/MC, I’ve never seen one, so we gritted our teeth and took Amex.
You could always try signing up for a couple of classes at Wake Tech – for some reason the credit card companies start throwing solicitations for pre-approved cards at anybody they think might be a student. Heck, you could probably cancel in time to get your tuition back, and they’d STILL be sending you stuff for the next six months. Dunno why they do this, since we never have any money, but my roommate and I (both grad students) could practically wallpaper the apartment with all the fine offers from various financial institutions.