Saturday, April 16, 2011

7 Best Cards for Bad Credit

Are you looking for a way to rebuild your credit? CNN Money provides a list of seven cards that might help:

Orchard Bank credit card

Orchard Bank, part of megabank HSBC, offers three credit cards plus a secured card for consumers needing to rebuild their credit. You simply apply and the bank decides which card you qualify for based on your credit worthiness.

The unsecured cards come with annual fees ranging from $39 to $59, depending on credit history, and APRs range from 14.9% to 19.9%, also based on your credit.

To put that in perspective, a credit card like the Applied Bank Unsecured Visa Gold -- which also targets consumers with poor credit -- comes with a 29.99% APR for all customers.

Capital One Secured MasterCard

The annual fee on this secured card is a reasonable $29, and while most secured cards require security deposits of around $250, you can deposit as little as $49 and still get a credit line of $200. If you deposit more -- like $99 or $200 -- you can increase your credit line up to $3,000.

"It's more of a secured card than an unsecured card, but it's both, which is very nice," said Curtis Arnold, founder of CardRatings.com. "And some people just don't have 200 bucks to put down as a deposit, so only having to put $49 down is great."

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