Bad Credit Credit Cards - What You Should Know

Posted by Nick Niesen on October 29th, 2010

In today's world it is almost a necessity to have a credit card. If you have bad credit your options can become limited in regards to a credit. Many of the credit card companies will just deny the application. So picking the right card to apply for is very important and you might need to take advantage of bad credit credit cards.

The first thing is to consider what your credit rating is. The reason for this is to many credit card inquiries will decrease your credit score. You do not want to have to many inquiries so you need to limit the number of applications you submit. Choose one or two that are more likely to approve you if you have a bad credit rating. If your credit rating is bad, more than likely your approval odds are very low for a low cost card. So at this point you would want to research a few bad credit credit cards. There are several companies that will deal with less than perfect credit and actually help improve your credit rating and establish a good credit history. There are both secured and unsecured bad credit credit cards available today.

Things to look for when choosing a credit card:

There are a lot of companies out there that make claims that they are helping individuals receive credit cards but in reality they just use the opportunity to take advantage of your already bad situation. This is the reason you need to compare various card issuers and their offers. Be sure to read all the fine print for every offer your considering. This includes information on the fees, participation fees, or any other startup costs plus your credit limit. These fees can produce a balance on your credit card before you even receive it. The truth of the matter is that no matter where you secure your credit card there will be extra fees involved if you have a tarnished credit history. But if you carefully compare your options you can find the offer with the lowest fees and interest rates (APR).

You can also have those fees associated with a secured credit card. This type of card requires a savings account to be opened and your balance would be what your credit limit is. If you were to default on the payments you would lose the balance.

Ultimately if you have bad credit it is not impossible to get a credit card, it will be more expensive but it is a way to regain your credit worthiness. If you are careful you can eventually apply for a regular credit card with competitive rates and credit limits. It is also wise to try and deal with online companies where their primary business is credit cards. They a lot of times are the ones with the better rates, lower fees, and a lot of times will not require a savings account. Your credit limit will be normally in the $250.00-$300.00 range but that is enough to start repairing your credit score. Used wisely it is more than enough.