That means you need to maintain at least $500 in your deposit account since that is the limit on the Platinum Zero™ Secured Visa® Credit Card. Applied Bank will report your payment history on the credit card to the credit bureaus. If you manage to pay your credit card bills on time, this should establish a good credit rating for you, and put you on your way to securing a more favorable loan when you need one. There is no application fee to apply  for this credit card. 

One of the really nice features of the Platinum Zero™ Secured Visa® Credit Card from Applied Bank is the zero percent annual rate on card purchases. That makes this card a very convenient way to buy a more expensive item when you find it at a good price. You can then pay it off over a time period that fits your budget without having to pay finance charges. Remember, you do have to make the minimum monthly payments. You also will be charged a monthly maintenance fee of $9.95. Take that into consideration when you plan your purchases. If this is the only way you can establish a credit rating, then perhaps it is worth the $9.95 per month. 

Obtaining a credit card can bring all sorts of problems along with it. Identity theft is rampant these days. The Platinum Zero™ Secured Visa® Credit Card from Applied Bank comes with free personal ID theft protection and zero fraud liability.  Having personally experienced the fraudulent use of my credit card, I can tell you that is a nice feature. Even with this feature it can take months of processing to get fraud issues resolved. Imagine the headaches without it. With any credit card it is important to read the entire credit card agreement, so you know what you are agreeing to. This card has a lot of nice features but it also has a lot of fees if you should happen to not comply with one of the rules. Expect to pay between $30 and $35 every time you break a rule such as sending in your payment late or not having enough funds in your account to cover the payment. 

This is where you need to remember that the whole point to getting a Platinum Zero™ Secured Visa® Credit Card from Applied Bank is to establish a good credit rating. The only way that will happen is if you pay close attention to the terms of the card, pay on time and don’t break any of the rules. If you manage that then the only fee you should have to worry about is the monthly maintenance fee. Most secured credit cards have such a fee. They aren’t advertised heavily so read the fine print if you are comparing two different credit cards. The maintenance fee for this card is not unusually high, so if you like the features, this card may work for you.

This is a way for you to slowly reestablish a better credit rating. You will have to open a deposit account at Applied Bank®. The amount of money you need to deposit in this account equals your desired credit limit. For the  Applied Bank® Secured Visa® Credit Card  that can be anywhere between $200 and $500. 

With a secured credit card, you are depositing the money you intend to spend before you spend it. You have to maintain that amount of money in the account while you have the credit card. It is the bank’s guarantee that you won’t skip out on payments. In return, Applied Bank® will report your payment history on the credit card to the credit reporting bureaus. As you build a history of ontime payments, your credit score will begin to climb again. 

Don’t expect this to be a fast process, but in the meantime you do have the use of a credit card for those transactions that really make life easier when you have one. Imagine arriving at a self service gas station late at night when there is no attendant on duty anymore. Most gas pumps now accept credit cards. I have yet to see one that accepts cash. 

The Applied Bank® Secured Visa® Credit Card comes with a low fixed rate annual percentage rate of 12.99% on purchases and cash advances. Banks tend to have lower APRs on secured credit cards since they know the money to pay for your purchases is in the bank already. Your credit card is still accepted at all the same places an unsecured credit card would be accepted at. You are also protected by zero fraud liability, so if someone you don’t know uses your credit card, your money is protected. Just don’t hand your credit card to someone else. Negligence is not covered by the liability protection. 

Applied Bank makes it very easy to apply for their secured Visa® credit card. After all, they offer this credit card because they want customers. You don’t have to worry about the safety of your deposit account. It is FDIC insured and Applied Bank is considered among one of the top banks for financial strength. 

Should you be in the unfortunate position of not having quite mastered the art of paying every bill on time, this may be the bank you should look at. Many secured credit cards have increased annual percentage rates once you are late with a payment. At Applied Bank, they won’t raise your rate if you happen to make your payment late. 

Do remember that you are trying to improve your credit score though. You really do not want to make your payments late. You want to be a model bill payer. You want to see your credit score rise so sometime in the future you may be able to qualify for a bigger loan such as a car loan or even a home mortgage. To make sure, your efforts are being reported, request your credit history annually from the credit bureaus. You are entitled to a free annual report from each of the three credit bureaus.

The unusual thing about Orchard Bank is that they will take a look at the information you enter in the online application and let you know which of the four credit cards they are willing to approve you for. At that point, you need to read the terms through carefully and decide whether you like the one they are offering to you. All four of them have an annual fee associated with them. For the secured credit card the annual fee is waived for the first year. It is an easy way to find out just how bad your credit rating really is if you didn’t already know.

You know you have your work cut out for you if they are only offering you a secured credit card.  Orchard Bank® Visa® Credit Cards are offered and administered through HSBC bank, a subsidiary of one of the ten largest banking holding companies in the United States. The good news is that despite your miserable credit, you can get a secured credit card and start rebuilding your credit rating. With a secured credit card you are obligated to maintain an amount of money in an account with the bank that at least equals the credit limit on your secured credit card. Most of these accounts do not pay any interest. At Orchard Bank the minimum security deposit required for a secured credit card is $200.

If you are lucky enough not to have ruined your credit rating quite that badly, you are looking at a Platinum, Gold or Standard Visa credit card. The annual fees for these vary between $35 and $79 with a processing fee ranging from $0 to $39. Reestablishing your credit rating will not be cheap but there aren’t many options open to you. Hopefully, you will get the money back in the future in the form of savings on loans once you have built your credit rank to a level where a loan for a car or house would be possible. The whole point of having a good credit rating is being able to qualify for better terms when it really counts.

If you are looking to buy a $50,000 house with a $10,000 down payment, the difference in your monthly payments between a 6% and a 5% interest rate 30-year mortgage is $25 per month. Paying the annual fee on that credit card will have been made up with just two or three monthly savings on your mortgage payment. Of course, no one can guarantee that it will make a difference of 1% but that kind of difference can easily be found between credit card interest rates for purchases offered to people with better credit ratings and those with worse credit ratings. In fact, on credit cards the difference tends to be larger. For the Orchard Bank® Visa® Credit Cards the APR on purchases ranges between 14.9% and 28.9% for the unsecured credit cards. Quite a range, so when you check to see what they are willing to offer you, make sure you understand what your APR will be.

They want to encourage you to use direct deposit to fund your prepaid MasterCard, so they are offering a $10 incentive that will be deposited into your account within 5 days of the first direct deposit being made to your account by your employer or the government. The direct deposit has to amount to at least $250 though. Still, a 4% bonus is not bad in this economy.

One feature I really like about the Green Dot® Prepaid MasterCard® is that they have a network of 15,000 ATM machines where you can withdraw money without a fee. This is a rare feature among prepaid debit cards. Not as rare is the free direct deposit and online bill pay. In fact, I haven’t seen any of the banks offering prepaid debit cards charge for direct deposit. Being charged for the use of an ATM machine to withdraw money is very common though. You are quite lucky if you live near an ATM that belongs to their network. With most prepaid debit cards you have to pay a $2.50 ATM withdrawal fee plus whatever charges the bank whose ATM machine you are using charges.

The Green Dot® Prepaid MasterCard® has an easy online application form. You will find that it does not take long to fill it out. For the privilege of using this prepaid debit card, you will be charged a monthly fee of $5.95 unless you have $1000 deposited onto your card that month or make 30 transactions. This card is offered through Synovus Bank, one of the largest community banks in the Southeastern part of the United States.

Currently you can take advantage of the cancellation of the $4.95 activation fee, that is normally charged by Green Dot® Prepaid MasterCard®. This prepaid MasterCard will not expire for at least a year from the date you set up the debit agreement. So it makes a reasonable emergency debit card for when you need to travel to a remote location. You do have to be at least 18 years old to obtain one of these, so it will not work for your child’s first trip without your supervision. It will, however, do a reasonable job at providing what you haven’t been able to do without a checking account.

Since the laws have been tightened for applying for any type of financial account, you will need to hand out your social security number, name and address, to even be considered. This is to prevent these types of accounts from being used by illegal aliens. This is the type of card any legal citizen of the United States can carry.

You may make purchases at any store that accepts MasterCard debit cards. Unfortunately, the Green Dot® Prepaid MasterCard® does not come with the warranty extensions you would find on most regular credit cards. You are limited to the manufacturer’s warranty for the products purchased. If you don’t feel comfortable carrying large sums of cash around and you have some financial circumstance in your past which does not allow you to qualify for a regular credit card, this may be the card for you. The prepaid MasterCard gives you a chance to prove that you can be fiscally responsible and perhaps allow you to be approved for a standard credit card in the future.

Prepaid means that you have to fund it before you can use it. Actually, that is the way most debit cards are meant to work. Generally a debit card gives you access to your checking account and the money is deducted from your account the instant you purchase something using the debit card. The NetSpend® Visa® Prepaid Debit Card gives you the opportunity to do this without having a checking account. You can add up to three cards to your account so if you wanted to have this as an emergency fund for your family, you could give your kids one of these.

They highly encourage you to fund your prepaid debit card with direct deposits. One of the benefits this would entitle you to is a 5% annual percentage rate savings account. With interest rates as low as they are in this economy, I find 5% very attractive. You want to be careful though. There are two payment plans for the  NetSpend® Visa® Prepaid Debit Card. Depending on how you plan to use this prepaid debit card, you will want a different payment option.

If this is meant as your emergency backup system in case someone in the family gets stranded without cash, then you do not want the plan with the monthly fee. You will want to apply for the payment plan that does not charge a setup fee or a monthly fee but rather charges on a per transaction basis. The ATM access fee is $2.50 which is quite standard these days. This payment plan also has per transaction fees of $1 or $2 depending on the type of transaction. That is perfect if you don’t plan to use it much. In fact, in combination with the 5% APR for direct deposit, this could be very attractive.

On the other hand if you are looking for a card that you want to use for most of your purchases, perhaps because you don’t have easy access to cash, you will want to consider the monthly fee plan, called FeeAdvantage. Your monthly fee is $9.95 but there are no per transaction fees other than the $2.50 ATM fee. One of the advantages of the NetSpend® Visa® Prepaid Debit Card is that there is no credit check. So even if you have no chance at being approved for a regular credit or debit card because of some financial problems in your past, you can get this one. The application can be completed online in about a minute.

Decide before you apply, how you plan to use this card so you can choose the appropriate plan for you. It doesn’t cost any money to get the card but once you use it, expect to pay fees. The fee you do avoid by selecting a prepaid debit card is the overdraft fee. Since the card has to be funded in advance, you will simply run out of available money. There will not be any extra fees because you spent more than you had. They do offer a $10 cushion if you qualify for their NetSpend Premier program which seems to require direct deposit. Luckily, direct deposit is free.

Good question. The best answer is to improve your credit rating. MetaBank reports your payment history to all three of the credit bureaus monthly when you have one of these cards. Rebuilding your credit rating takes time but having a monthly record of your good payment history will improve your chances of succeeding. They will report your transactions as far as online bill paying goes and any action associated with borrowing money. One of the benefits of having a prepaid card is that you will not be paying any late fees on your credit cards since the money has to be on the card before you spend it.

The AccountNow® Prepaid Visa® makes it fairly easy to add money to your card. The company highly recommends direct deposits from your employer. They even give you a $25 bonus if you sign up for direct deposit of at least $100 that recurs at least twice within 35 days. You actually need to keep it up for a bit longer than that to receive your bonus since it is paid 65 days after your first deposit and your direct deposit order still has to be active at that time. With that little caveat, it is a nice bonus for your direct deposit.

You can also add money via Paypal, a checking or savings account or any of over 100,000 locations offering MoneyGram, Western Union, Green Dot Money Pak or Visa ReadyLink. When using most of these options, your money will be available immediately.

If you don’t have a checking account, the AccountNow® Prepaid Visa® is a possible alternative. With direct deposit you will be able to access your money easily and since they offer online bill paying free of charge, you have the main functions of a checking account available to you. This card does charge a monthly fee which currently is $9.95 once you load money onto your card. If you are currently cashing your checks at stores or banks that charge a fee for this service, you may save enough in check cashing fees to make this card a worthwhile savings tool.

MetaBank does not do a credit check before issuing this card so it is a good tool if you have ruined your credit history and would not get approved for a credit card otherwise. They have 100% guaranteed approval. The minimum age for obtaining one of these cards is 14 years. This may be a reasonable alternative to cash if your child is headed off on a lengthy trip and you don’t want them to travel with a lot of money but want there to be an emergency backup system. You could even have the child apply for one of these cards and not even load any money onto it. Applying is free and if you don’t load any money onto the card, there is no monthly fee. So as an emergency backup, your child could travel with the card, and if you need to load money onto it, you could do it from your Paypal account.

AccountNow has an A rating from the Better Business Bureau. This does not mean they do not get complaints but it does mean that they resolve most of them. They have been listed with the Better Business Bureau since 2006.

Orchard Bank asks you to pre-qualify for one of their cards. You give them some information and then they let you know which one of their credit cards you could get. Read the terms and conditions they provide you at that time very carefully. If you have no idea whether you can qualify for a credit card, this is certainly an easy way to find out. If they don’t think you are a good risk, they may offer you a secured credit card.

Secured credit cards usually require you to open an account with the bank offering the secured credit card with an amount of money maintained in it that equals the credit limit on the credit card. Most of these accounts do not pay any interest, however, the APR on purchases does tend to be lower than the APR offered on unsecured credit cards. The main reason to get a secured credit card is to reestablish a better credit rating after you destroyed it. For most people who have not yet had a credit card, there are other options available. It is the people that used to have credit but didn’t pay it off according to the terms they obtained it under that may not have another option open to them. If this happened to you, you know what I am talking about. Banks have gotten tougher on loan approvals.

Anyhow, there is no harm in finding out whether you could qualify for an Orchard Bank Classic Master Card. Even if you decide you don’t like the terms, at least you now know what your chance at being approved for any credit card is. If Orchard Bank pre-qualifies you for their highest level credit card, then you know that you have a reasonable chance at a credit card at similar banks. When it comes to credit cards, you really need to decide what features are important to the way you use your credit cards. If the Orchard Bank Classic Master Card would work for you then pre-qualify for a Orchard Bank Classic Master Card and find out if they think you match their risk profile.

In general, the new credit card laws have increased the number of consumer protections but that doesn’t mean the banks can’t make money off you. They can and they do. It is up to you to research what types of benefits each credit card offers and decide whether that benefit is something you would use. The benefits that come with the Orchard Bank Classic Master Card are online access to your account, online bill pay at no charge, fraud protection and the opportunity to request balance updates via email and text messages. You can even sign up to have them send you a message if you have a payment coming due soon.

Mostly, the Orchard Bank Classic Master Card will appeal to people who need to rebuild their credit rating. Those with outstanding credit ratings can qualify for credit cards with better annual percentage rates on purchases. Orchard Bank’s method of letting you pre-qualify and informing you which credit card they would be willing to approve you for is certainly their best draw. It takes the guessing out of your search.

What can you win? Every month the sweepstakes pot consists of 0.5% of the money customers using the  American DreamCard™ Platinum MasterCard? have charged to their credit cards with the maximum being $50,000. According to HSBC, the bank that offers this credit card, they have paid out over $1 million so far. Not a bad reward if you fancy yourself a winner. And who doesn’t? In our culture dreaming big is instilled in children in elementary school. I remember my daughter coming home with a project assignment to figure out what she would do with one million dollars back in fourth grade.

As far as platinum cards go, it is on the cheaper end of the annual fee spectrum giving a range of $0 to $59 depending on creditworthiness. However, it is also on the lighter side of benefits. It doesn’t offer any big perks as the name platinum card might suggest. It’s main feature truly is the sweepstakes. They even entice you to refer your friends for an additional 50 sweepstakes entries and a bonus of 1000 entries if one of your referrals signs up for their .American DreamCard™ Platinum MasterCard?

This credit card allows you online access to your account and you certainly want to watch this one closely. The late payment penalty fees are rather stiff at $39. Returned payment fees are $35. Currently their annual percentage rate for purchases varies between 14.99% and 21.99% based on your creditworthiness. How they define creditworthiness is hard to tell. This card is definitely for those of you that have good credit ratings and a tendency to pay off balances in full.

If you love sweepstakes then you have really found your dream card. What gambler could resist a monthly sweepstakes for up to $50,000? Their sweepstakes periods appear to last for one year during which sweepstakes entries just accumulate. They are only discarded after the sweepstakes period ends. Of course, that means as you get to the end of the annual drawing period, your competition is stiff. Since when has that stopped a dreamer though? As jackpots increase, so does the participation in the lotteries around the globe. We all like to dream.

I know people that seem to be born with luck. They can count on winning sweepstakes, lotteries, drawings. If you are one of those people, how could you resist this credit card? You probably would never even have to add any entries by using the credit card, your initial 1000 entries would likely be enough to make you a monthly winner. Do I sound jealous? Perhaps just a little. Attracting luck seems like it would be a wonderful gift. Anyhow, if that is you, I am sure you know that by now. The American DreamCard™ Platinum MasterCard? has found a niche and it focuses solely on that niche. Their entire website is focused on the sweepstakes. You may actually forget they are offering a credit card, they have so much information on the sweepstakes and so little about their credit card.

What you need to do is improve your credit rating. Good credit ratings lead to lower rates on loans since you are considered a smaller risk for the loan company. Convincing lenders that you are an acceptable risk now takes time. You need to act like a responsible money manager for a while and you have to be able to prove that you are. That is where the Public Savings Bank Classic Secured VISA Credit Card can come in. This is a credit card that does not require a credit check.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t an easy cure. They may not check your credit but they protect themselves. They know if you are going for a secured credit card, you either have no credit history or a horrible one. Most likely the latter. What is a secured credit card? A secured credit card is a card that requires you to keep funds or perhaps other assets such as a car as a guarantee to secure the credit card. If you were to run into trouble and not be able to pay that credit card bill, the company would then be able to seize those assets. Generally, the amount of assets you need to maintain, and yes, that means not touch, in an account is equal to your credit limit on the credit card.

That may not sound too enticing but remember why you are doing this. You are the one that ruined your credit rating in the first place. You have to fix that somehow. Now to the good part!  With a Public Savings Bank Classic Secured VISA Credit Card they do report your payment history to all 3 major credit bureaus. This is exactly what you want. It won’t do you any good to pay every bill you get on time if none of the companies report your good behavior. Public Savings Bank will report this if you get a Public Savings Bank Classic Secured VISA Credit Card.

Worried about annual maintenance fees or even monthly fees? Don’t be. The Public Savings Bank Classic Secured VISA Credit Card does not have those. This card if used very carefully can do exactly what you want it to do: Rebuild your credit rating. You have to read the account agreement very carefully though and make sure you keep reading any changes they make. You will be paying fees to use their credit card. To begin with they charge a $75 fee for applying for the credit card. I don’t think you can avoid this one. They also have a $25 fee every time you want to increase or decrease your credit limit. This one you can avoid by considering how much money you can afford to keep in a non-interest bearing account while you use this credit card to improve your credit rating. The Public Savings Bank Classic Secured VISA Credit Card is offered with a credit limit from $300 to $2000. Decide how much you want to use before you apply for the card and stick with it.

They also have fees for late payments and bounced checks. If you truly are the reformed responsible money manager you are trying to prove you are, these should not affect you. They do offer 0% APR for purchases the first 6 months. Face it; you will have to buy something in order to prove that you paid it off. Generally, I recommend paying off the entire bill every month. You don’t want to get yourself into financial debt again. So with the reporting to all 3 credit bureaus, the lack of maintenance fees and the ability to apply for a credit limit you can afford to maintain, the Public Savings Bank Classic Secured VISA Credit Card seems like a reasonable choice to rebuild your credit history.

Chase Freedom Visa Credit Card is one of the latest great deals online, which you may be tempted to sign up for. However, before signing up for any type of credit card, you do need to know what you are getting into, especially whether or not it is worth your time and investment. If you are responsible with your finances, getting a credit card is no big deal, but on the flipside, if you are someone who is responsible with your finances, don’t you want to get even more out of the average use of your credit card?

Here are the basic benefits that you can expect from Chase Freedom Visa Credit Card:

5% Cash Back: This is a very hefty bonus in an average credit card since you can get up to 5% cash back on many main purchase categories, like department stores, airlines, home improvement, gas, grocery stores, and hotels. This simply means that for many of the regular purchases that you are already making, you are now earning a little bit of cash back as a reward.

 Unlimited Cash Back: This is a rewards program that will offer you a 1% rebate for each dollar that you purchase. The main appealing factor in this is that there is no cap on how many rewards that you can receive, unlike many other top credit card providers. If you are going to spend some serious money on your credit card and make major purchases, you can also be comforted in knowing that you will be getting serious rebates back in return.

 0% Intro APR: This is another main advantage if you are interested in making a larger purchase that you want to pay off over time with no interest. What many people choose to do is to get Chase Freedom Visa Credit Card with 0% intro APR to buy furniture for their home, a vacation, or another necessity that they can pay off in a small loan without any extra interest rates overall.

 No Annual Fee: Ah, this is truly one of the best aspects of this credit card because there is nothing worse than being slapped with a pesky annual fee when you are already paying other rates to your credit card company. Besides the fact that so many top credit cards now offer competitive rates without an annual fee, so why would you need to pay one in the first place?

Last of all, Chase Freedom Visa Credit Card does offer a fun benefit for all of you online shoppers out there. If you are guilty of having a little bit of an online retail obsession, you can instead choose to purchase through Chase Freedom Visa Credit Card select retail merchants so that you can continue to receive up to 20% cash back. That is not too shabby at all!

The point of the matter is that you will need to use a credit card for every day and major purchases in your life, so who will you choose? The benefits that the Chase Freedom Visa Credit Card provides to you are clear with stellar deals in cash back, merchant purchase rewards, and a 0% introductory APR. These are the type of deals that you need to look for in whichever credit card provider that you choose because you want to make sure that the money that you’re spending is working for you. This is much more preferable than having to deal with rates, hidden fees, and all of the other garbage that can often pop up with many competing credit card merchants.