I was wondering if anyone knew a good credit card to use for fair to poor credit. I don't want a secured card or something that is going to charge a high annual fee. I do own a couple of small store cards I was thinking of charging on and rebuilding my rate that way but it would nice to have a card to use in case of emergency...and not one that has an annual fee attached.
You'll be hard-pressed to find a credit card company that will do everything you ask. Typically you can only pick 2 out of the 3 things (low annual fee, low interest rate, not secured). If you have fair to poor credit, 90% of the time you can only get secured credit card in order to build your credit. Unfortunately with the secured credit card there's typically an annual fee but the rate isn't too bad.
Yeah, you're going to have to probably go with the secured credit card in the beginning. You can slowly rebuild your credit this way. There just aren't many credit card companies that are willing to take the risk giving you an unsecured credit card if you have less than stellar credit. Avoid credit as much as possible. It's really not even worth getting a credit card if your score is super low. The interest rates are outrageous. Focus on getting your score up first.
When it comes to credit, it has to be a win-win situation. I mean, although it's important to have emergency money in the form of a credit card, credit card companies and banks also have to make sure that they don't lose their business by qualifying just about everyone. Truth be told, most delinquent customers have low credit ratings. Companies are also trying to balance everything out so that the customer himself will get to benefit properly from what they have to offer.
