Secured Credit Cards w/ No Annual Fees (Visa, MasterCard, Amex, Discover)

We get thousands of visitors every month looking for a secured credit card, so it is time and that we delve into this particular credit product. Secured credit cards are usually sought after by people who have to reestablish their credit rating and build up their FICO score(s) again. However, there are some precautions you must take when you are researching and shopping for one of these cards. There are of course different secured credit cards you can choose from on the market these days, and the typical cards are from Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, and Capital One (just to name a handful).

Before we go any further, I should point out that secured credit cards are not just for reestablishing credit, but they are often used for people who don’t have any credit established in their past. Often, we see parents who get secured credit cards for their teenagers so that they can learn how to use credit cards wisely and responsibly. This way the balance of the credit card can never balloon completely out of hand.

It’s important that you are aware of the fees that are charged by the secured credit card company you are considering because this is where banks and lending institutions make their money on these credit products. They know that you are trying to reestablish your credit rating because you have a bad credit score due to your past spending and payment history, so they know you are basically between a rock and a hard place. This is why you have to avoid predatory creditors who are taking advantage of your temporary negative financial situation.

We don’t want to assume all of our readers understand how secured credit cards work, so I will do a little bit of preamble on them now.

Understanding The Basics of Secured Credit Cards

The first thing you want to avoid is getting a secured credit card from a company that insists on you purchasing an insurance policy. The next thing you want to make sure is that the secured credit card you choose records all of your purchase activity (and most importantly your payment activity) to the main credit agencies. The credit agencies you want to be alerted are TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian – in the end, you want to make sure that your Fair Isaac Fico Number is affected by your activity. Don’t even bother getting a secured credit card unless you’re activity is reported to these agencies.

Some secured credit card offers will offer you a grace period, and although that may be a good idea for the first month of usage, be careful – they may have other fees in their agreement that will bite you in the ass eventually. The fees I’m talking about include; annual fees, processing fees, monthly fees, administration fees, and/or transaction fees. Ultimately, you want to get a card that doesn’t have any fees at all whatsoever, but it’s not realistic.

Keep in mind, that there really isn’t such a thing as a 100% no fee secured credit card – these creditors make their money from fees because your card balance maximum limit will be under $1000. In fact, most secured credit cards have a maximum of $500-$600 if you have been discharged from bankruptcy. This limit can be raised if your consumer activity is squeaky clean for a period of one year or more. Your humble narrator has claimed bankruptcy at one time and I to0 had a secured credit card with a limit of $600.

Once again, if you don’t understand how a secured credit card works, you need to know that you are making a cash deposit with creditor (usually a Visa, MasterCard, American Express, or Discover issuer), and you are basically using your own money. This is why finding a no fee card is next to impossible. Be very wary of creditors that guarantee a no fee credit card – we get into that further below.

With all of the above in mind, make sure that before you ever sign an agreement/contract for a secured card you have thoroughly read all of the document in detail. I know that this can be boring and a bit of a drag, but we recommend you read the contract through two or three times to make sure you have excluded any possibility of being duped by a predatory creditor.

Typically, unsecured credit cards can be provided to you by local credit unions or traditional banks. We recommend asking your local bank branch first about their different secured credit card products before you ever start searching online for card providers that you have never done business with in the past.

And by the way, we hope you enjoy our colorful images where we transposed Visa, American Express, Discover, and MasterCard logos into some fine pieces of jewelry. A little bit off-topic, but we thought it would look kind of neat.

How to Properly Use Your Secured Credit Card

There are some people who wonder how to use their secured credit card once they have received it in the mail. Make sure that you always pay your balance in full at the end of each month. This is the first thing that credit agencies look at when they are judging your viability as a “good customer“. Never make payments late, and never miss a payment or you will be causing yourself even more grief. Between 30% and 32% of your credit rating is based upon what kind of history you have as far as making your payments each month.

Never just pay the default minimum amount that the creditor says you can safely pay on your statement. You want to make sure that you have all of your debt(s) cleared off at the and of each month. Remember, that’s the likely reason you want a secured credit card in the first place – so you can reestablish your credit rating and have the use of the card for making purchases – things such as hotel rooms, travel, or online shopping. There are many different purchases in today’s world where you need a credit card. These two reasons are the primary reasons for a secured credit card.

Of course, the same rules apply to secured credit cards as to any other type of credit. Don’t overspend, and pay it all off by the due date.

When you are finally reestablishing your credit (and this can take between one year or two years depending) you will eventually come to the point when a company will allow you to get a normal credit card and you will see these offers coming through to you in the mail. This is a surefire way to know that your secured credit card is correctly reporting to all of the different credit agencies.

Be very careful when you start signing up for your new normal credit card(s), and avoid some of the sharks that are out there in the murky waters of the credit industry. You will know if you are being lined up for some sort of scam if a company guarantees your approval for the new card and they ask for upfront fees – right out of the gate. Don’t even bother with these companies because they are unscrupulous. A real/legitimate creditor will be asking for some kind of fee payment – whether it be annual or transactional.

You need to watch out for any kind of offer coming in your snail mailbox for a secured credit card where they tell you to call a 1-900 number because they are charging you money just for the call. There have been outrageous companies that scam consumers by charging them up to $40 just for one phone call! So look out for 1-900 numbers!

One last reminder – do not trust any secured credit card offer from a company that guarantees your approval. Okay, enough, I said that twice now. One more thing I forgot to mention – make sure you don’t use the cash advance service from these secured cards, because this doesn’t look good to creditors. Only use your secured card when you’re doing purchases online or with hotels and rental car companies – etc.

People In Bankruptcy (or discharged) Requiring a Secured Credit Card

So in keeping with our theme of secured cards, we wanted to show you a few examples (actually four) of some visitors to our website(s) that have been looking for guaranteed approval on cards that don’t carry any fees at all. This is just the kind of card we have warned you about above, and we want to show you some examples from real people who have been opening themselves up for predatory creditor abuse.

In all of these examples we informed the applicant that they should be doing their homework so that they are not looking for these kinds of bogus offers. As a matter fact, we removed this form from our websites so that these people would not be confused into believing that we offer credit cards with no fees and guaranteed approval.

For all of these secured credit card requests we used the state of Georgia because there was quite a few people applying from that State due to the laws of the land. We have one from Atlanta GA, another from Macon, one from Gainesville, and the last in Columbus. We’ve had many different visitors from places such as Albany, Savannah, Athens, Rome, etc. – it’s amazing to us how many people actually still believe that there is such a thing as a guaranteed secured card, and even more astonishing – they believe that such a card would not have fees attached.

So what we have done is included a bullet point list taken from the actual online form that these people were using when searching for secured credit cards. We point out some of the details regarding their financial situation such as bankruptcy, the date they were discharged from bankruptcy, the reason for the secured card, annual fees, processing fees, administration fees, transaction fees, and monthly fees. We also have fields for the types of different credit cards and the ones we chose were Visa, American Express, Discover, and MasterCard. We also include their FICO score (credit score) of the applicant, the FUSA lender classification, the product nomenclature acronym, and the applicants’ residence by City and State (in this case Georgia).

Atlanta GA: Secured Visa Card with No Fees – $1000 Limit

Atlanta Georgia Applicant’s No Annual Fee Visa Card Approval $1000 Limit

So our first applicant was looking for a guaranteed secured card with no fees and they wanted a $1000 balance limit available to them. As you can see in the tables below this was a very typical consumer who actually wasn’t even discharged from bankruptcy yet and they were already looking for a new credit card. Not a good idea. They didn’t want any kind of fees (at all) including processing, administration, or monthly. This person was requesting an APR between 18% and 20% and they had a credit score of 320 at the time – so they claim, but since they were already in bankruptcy that credit score should be nonexistent. This person was living in Atlanta at the time.

Data on Secured Visa Card – Atlanta Consumer Pre-App;

• Bankruptcy OK: Yes
• Discharged from Bankruptcy: No
• When Discharged from Personal Bankruptcy: n/a
• Reason for Secured Card: Rebuilding Credit
• Annual Fees: No
• Processing Fees: No
• Monthly Fees: No
• Administration Fees: No
• Transaction Fees: No
• Secured Visa Card: Yes
• Secured American Express Card: No
• Secured Discover Card: No
• Secured MasterCard: No
• Credit Score of Applicant: 320
• Effective APR Requested: 18%-20%
• Secured Card Balance Maximum Limit: $1000
• Lender Classification: Secured Credit Card Issuer
• Product Nomenclature Acronym: (SCC/Secured Credit Cards)
• Applicant’s Area of Residence: Atlanta, GA
• Other Locals for SCC Requests: Macon, Albany, Augusta, Savannah, Rome, Jesup, Athens
• Nearest Major City to Card Holder: Atlanta, GA
• State of Issuance: Georgia

Macon GA: Secured MasterCard with No Annual Fee $500 Limit

Macon Georgia Applicant’s No Annual Fee MasterCard Approval $500 Limit

Our second submission was from an applicant in Macon Georgia who wanted a no annual fee MasterCard with a $500 maximum limit balance. They were already discharged from bankruptcy as of December 2010, and they were trying to rebuild their credit. Once again, you can see that they were under the illusion that they could be guaranteed a card that had no annual fees or transaction fees whatsoever. This doesn’t exist folks.

Data on Secured MasterCard – Macon Consumer Pre-App;

• Bankruptcy OK: Yes
• Discharged from Bankruptcy: Yes
• When Discharged from Personal Bankruptcy: December 2010
• Reason for Secured Card: Rebuilding Credit
• Annual Fees: No
• Office Processing Fees: No
• Monthly Fees: No
• Admin Fees: No
• Transaction Fees: No
• Secured Visa Card: No
• Secured American Express Card: No
• Secured Discover Card: No
• Secured MasterCard: Yes
• Credit Score of Applicant: 310
• Effective APR Requested: 4% – 8%
• Secured Card Balance Maximum Limit: $500
• Lender Classification: Secured Credit Card Issuer
• Product Nomenclature Acronym:  (SCC/Secured Credit Cards)
• Applicant’s Area of Residence: Macon, GA
• Other Locals for SCC Requests: Macon, Albany, Augusta, Savannah, Rome, Jesup, Athens
• Nearest Major City to Card Holder: Macon, GA
• State of Issuance: Georgia

Gainesville GA: Secured Discover Card – No Fee What So Ever $700 Limit

Gainesville Georgia No Fee Discover Card Approval $700 Limit

The one below is from Gainesville GA and they wanted a no fee Discover card with a $700 balance limit. They were looking for a guaranteed approval and they also didn’t want to pay any fees on the card. They were looking for an effective APR between 10% and 14% and they estimated that there FICO score was 300 at the time. It goes without saying that this kind of card doesn’t exist (on the planet!).

Data on Secured Discover – Gainesville Consumer Pre-App;

• Bankruptcy OK: Yes
• Discharged from Bankruptcy: Yes
• When Discharged from Personal Bankruptcy: October 2012
• Reason for Secured Card: Rebuilding Credit
• Annual Fees: No
• Processing Fees: No
• Administration Fees: No
• Monthly Fees: No
• Transaction Fees: No
• Secured Visa Card: No
• Secured American Express Card: No
• Secured Discover Card: Yes
• Secured MasterCard: No
• Credit Score of Applicant: 300
• Effective APR Requested: 10% – 14%
• Secured Card Balance Maximum Limit: $700
• Lender Classification: Secured Credit Card Issuer
• Product Nomenclature Acronym:  (SCC/Secured Credit Cards)
• Applicant’s Area of Residence: Gainesville, GA
• Other Locals for SCC Requests: Macon, Albany, Augusta, Savannah, Rome, Jesup, Athens
• Nearest Major City to Card Holder: Gainesville, GA
• State of Issuance: Georgia

Columbus GA: Secured Amex Card with No Annual Fee $400 Limit

Columbus Georgia Applicant’s No Annual Fee American Card Approval $400 Limit

Our last example of a person looking for a no fee credit card came from Columbus Georgia and they wanted a $400 maximum limit. This applicant was discharged officially November 2012 and they were trying to rebuild their credit as soon as possible. They were looking for an APR of 12% – 18%, which is completely ridiculous because even people who have good credit are paying 18% on her credit cards.

This goes to show you there is a serious problem with educating Americans when it comes to personal finance. This is why predatory lenders seem to be still getting away with ripping off people who don’t have enough information to make wise decisions. We ended up e-mailing this person and explaining to them that they need to be careful if they keep on looking for guaranteed secured cards and entertaining offers from companies that claim they don’t have any fees. You might as well be looking for a Unicorn or Bigfoot.

Data on Secured American Express – Columbus Consumer Pre-App;

• Bankruptcy OK: Yes
• Discharged from Bankruptcy: Yes
• When Discharged from Personal Bankruptcy: November 2012
• Reason for Secured Card: Rebuilding Credit
• Annual Fees: No
• Monthly Fees: No
• Processing Fees: N0
• Processing Fees: No
• Transaction Fees: No
• Secured Visa Card: No
• Secured American Express Card: Yes
• Secured Discover Card: No
• Secured MasterCard: No
• Credit Score of Applicant: 340
• Effective APR Requested: 12% – 18%
• Secured Card Balance Maximum Limit: $400
• Lender Classification: Secured Credit Card Issuer
• Product Nomenclature Acronym: (SCC/Secured Credit Cards)
• Applicant’s Area of Residence: Columbus, GA
• Other Locals for SCC Requests: Macon, Albany, Augusta, Savannah, Rome, Jesup, Athens
• Nearest Major City to Card Holder: Columbus, GA
• State of Issuance: Georgia

Real Secured Credit Card Companies

Down below we have listed off some real secured credit cards you may consider (we don’t get paid from these companies – these are free referrals). These are legitimate cards that carry fees with them, so you need to be careful and read all of the agreements (did I mention carefully) so that you can avoid fees as much is possible going forward. There is no free lunch and no free ride when it comes to money.

Popular Secured Credit Cards With Fees

Below is a short list of popular secured credit cards on the market – some national cards and some more regional. These are your normal secured credit cards in that they do have fees on them. Fee structures are different though – fees can range from Monthly, Annual, Processing, Administration, and Transactional.

• First Progress Platinum Select MasterCard® Secured Credit Card
• Capital One® Secured MasterCard®
• Applied Bank® Secured Visa® Gold Credit Card
• The Secured Visa® from Merrick Bank
• National Express® Secured Visa® Credit Card
• First Progress Platinum Prestige MasterCard® Secured Credit Card
• Platinum Zero® Secured Visa® Credit Card from Applied Bank®
• First Progress Platinum Elite MasterCard® Secured Credit Card
• Continental Finance Matrix Secured Credit Card
• Continental Finance Cerulean Secured Credit Card

Helpful Pages of Reference – Good Reads

• BankRate.com
• Credit.com
• FoxBusiness.com
• FTC (avoiding secured credit card scams)
• WiseBread.com
• UsNews.com