Have green card, now to build a credit rating?

[BaWa 0]

Hmm, the American Express credit history/score transfer sounds interesting.

Does anyone know if VISA does a similar thing? I've got a credit card here in Belgium for several years now, with a perfect payment history.

If not, then I'll build my credit score the common way.

--BaWa

[kaffy 2]

Visa? no, not that I am aware of.

Building a credit score the traditional way isn't difficult anyway so you shouldn't have any trouble building a good score in a short period of time as long as you do your research beforehand

[featherB 1]

i also have capital one card and so far they have been doing great with their rate and everything, but i have a question here. does anyone know where to check your credit score for free??? people says i am too new to get it but i still want to know anyway.

There's no way to check a credit score that's actually used by lenders (ie your FICO scores) for free - but you can pay to check your Equifax and Transunion (not Experian anymore) FICO scores. The thing about being too new to get it is that if you're "too new", you won't have a score to check. If you can get set up as an authorised user on a credit card that does report to the CRAs (make sure of this in advance - there's no point being an AU on a card if the credit bureaus aren't going to know about it!), open a secured card with a decent lender, or get approved for a relatively easy-to-get card like Macy's, and just keep those ticking over for six months, you'll then find that you'll be able to get a FICO score. I could blather on for ages, but there are better places than VJ to read about this stuff - we bought a house last year and I was, understandably, rather interested in figuring out what my credit picture (and my husband's, for that matter) looked like, and what we needed to do to get qualified for the best possible mortgage rate. I think someone else upthread posted a link to myfico.com - that and another site, creditboards.com, are full of REALLY useful info on building credit (along with a lot of stuff about REbuilding credit, but it's all very interesting!) - and both have forums which can make for addictive reading in the same way as VJ!

Starting from scratch, credit-wise, it's actually really easy to get a good credit score - you will see!

[featherB 1]

Hmm, the American Express credit history/score transfer sounds interesting.

Does anyone know if VISA does a similar thing? I've got a credit card here in Belgium for several years now, with a perfect payment history.

If not, then I'll build my credit score the common way.

--BaWa

Don't think so. American Express is the issuing bank as well as the card network (although there are also AmExes issued by other banks now, just to confuse matters), and they will do this for everyone - always report the original date that the customer opened their very first AmEx, wherever in the world, or no matter how long ago (with some exceptions...) it was opened. Visa is the network that processes the transactions, but Visa cards aren't actually issued by Visa, if that makes sense... they're issued by individual banks, etc. I have a vague feeling that Citibank used to do something like this - where you could transfer a card issued overseas to the US and keep the history. That is only a VERY vague thing I think I remember reading about once, but might be worth looking into. But otherwise, you're unlikely to be able to do this with anything but an AmEx - the way they do things is very unique to them!

[featherB 1]

Get a secured credit card. Minimum deposit is usually about $300 or so

If you don't have that money right now, try and save for it.. If you can't save for it then you may need to re-think your finances

I really, really, REALLY agree with this. After a new immigrant has been in the US for a few months, and started to build up a bit of a credit profile and get "on the radar" for these things, they will start to receive pre-approved credit cards in the mail. With the exception of Capital One (which may not be the best-loved lender in the world, but can be a pretty good start, all things considered!), these will almost certainly be from the more predatory, bottom-feeding, sub-prime issuers out there - the ones that charge application fees, monthly account maintenance fees, fees to make a payment, ridiculous annual fees, fees fees and more fees, and all for some paltry $300 credit limit or something. And those cards are never going to go anywhere, never going to get any better, so even if you do use them to start building a credit profile, they're soon going to become the bane of your life. Run, as fast as you can, from those offers. They do have their place - for people who are trying to REbuild their credit after it has got into an almost irreparable mess, but if you're starting with a "clean slate" (i.e. if you're just moving to the US and need to establish some credit history), you CAN do better than that...

... and better than that, in addition to being made an authorised user on a decent card, if that's what you want to do, is to get a secured card with a decent lender. Do your research first, but the good ones, when they convert to a non-secured card (after, say, 9-12 months, assuming you've treated the card right and started to build up the kind of credit profile the bank wants to see) will still keep the same history, same account number, etc, so you won't be faced with having to "start afresh" yet again just when you seem to be building up some credit history. Whereas some fee-heavy card with a crappy limit, well, you'll be longing to close the thing, but doing that will set you back a bit in your credit-building efforts. Not to mention that using, say, $500 to secure a card for a year, and getting that full $500 back (plus a decent card with a decent lender and some decent credit history etc etc) has GOT to be better than paying an upfront application fee, annual fee, monthly fee, payment fee, every other kind of fee you can think of, to some shifty lender, which you will NOT get back, ever!

Secured cards, people... they are the way to go, seriously! AU cards are also good, but may not work for everyone (if the card has a late payment on it, that late payment shows up on your brand new credit file... if the card has a balance, that appears to be YOUR balance... etc!), but contrary to what people seem to think, secured cards don't need to be some terrible last resort. If you can spare some cash for a year or however many months, they can really, really help get you started!

Uh, rant over. Sorry!

[sheila526 2]

I agree about AMEX. I started with $4000 credit limit when I moved here in the US