Here are the rules: You need to sign up for the newsletter, which isn’t a bad idea anyway. Even people that have filed bankruptcy deal with credit cards and Mr. Credit Card has information on ALL credit cards, including cards for people with bad credit and no credit. There are also tons of great deals not only with the credit cards but on rewards and other stuff that you may find useful.

You also need to “like” the fan page and “like” one of the updates and that’s it. You’re entered into the contest and can now wait with your fingers and toes crossed until they message you on Facebook and let you know you won.

The rest of the rules and contest information are on the website. Easy, right? Good luck and don’t forget me when you win.

Then I received it from Best Buy and then again from Target. I’m starting to wonder if Epsilon does the email marketing for every credit card that I have.

The email messages that were sent clearly state that no personal or credit card information is involved only our names and email addresses are. This means that we could possibly receive spam that appears as though it’s personalized and thus trick us into thinking it’s real. It is best to keep some things in mind to prevent any possible harm from phishing attempts:

• Don’t open emails from people you don’t know.
• Don’t give out personal information via email. If you are contacted with a message that says the sender needs your account number or Social Security Number, it is most likely not a legitimate company or email.
• Don’t transmit personal information outside a secure website. If the website doesn’t look right or you’re not familiar with the website, call them instead.

I’m sure I’ll receive a bunch more of the email messages as I am quite the credit card hog. The funny thing is that when I received the messages about the email situation, I immediately wondered if the email was a fraud and that nothing really had happened. Weird huh.

Here is a list of some of the other card companies involved from an article I read today regarding Epsilon and the email hacking.

One of the other subprime cards I came across was the Rewards 660 which no longer exists. It looks as though the bank was purchased by MetaBank and became the Indigo card. When you go to the Indigo card website, however,  you are directed to the Milestone card by Genesis Financial Solutions, which looks a great deal like a secured card (with low minimum monthly payments of $35). You cannot just apply for this card though, you have to be invited and then insert your 8 digit code on the website so the information available for this card is limited.

Do I Still Have to Pay My Credit Card Bill if the Card Company is Closed?

Unfortunately, many people think that if the debt is sold to someone else or another bank takes over that you can stop paying and forget about it. If you choose not to pay your debt, it will be reported negatively by the new owners and possibly by the old one as well. If you have any of these cards that have suddenly dropped off the face of the earth, you still have to pay what you owe. You may be paying an entirely different company but I would suggest paying any outstanding debt that you have with the company.  Don’t worry, you will hear from someone because they’ll still want their money whether it’s the initial card company or new owner. Don’t make any other extra deposits especially if the company appears to be on shaky ground (which a lot of them are right now), and then move on to a more reliable card to continue building or rebuilding credit. It is definitely not a good sign when card companies are suddenly changing ownership or when the name of the card is changed over and over again. It just isn’t a stable or reliable line of credit that you should depend on (not to mention the enormous fees and interest rate that you are paying).

Two subprime cards that I know are still in existence and probably won’t be going anywhere for a while are the Orchard Bank card and First Premier card. Of the two cards, if you have absolutely no credit, bad credit, or have just filed bankruptcy, I would lean toward Orchard Bank. This is because the fees are a bit lower and they also have the pre application process where you can find out if you qualify for a better card. As I’ve said before, you could possibly qualify for an unsecured card and can skip the secured card route right away.

Let me know if you have any other information regarding any of the subprime cards, Tribute, Total Visa, Imagine Gold or Rewards 660. Just finding information on any of these cards has become quite difficult and I can only imagine what cardholders of these cards may be going through right now.

We are also aware of all of the crappy credit cards that are out there specifically for people with bad credit and those that have filed bankruptcy.  Fortunately, there is an area between crappy credit cards and credit cards that hate us. In my opinion, these cards are reputable credit card companies or banks, with somewhat higher APRs (which we understand), credit limits that are large enough to allow us to build and repair our credit but small enough to keep us from getting into mischief, and very minimal fees if any.

The most forgiving credit cards for me, have been the following:

Hooters MasterCard- this card has a high interest rate but no annual fee or other fees. It also has a rewards program, which is not typical of cards that are offered to post bankruptcy filers. As I have mentioned before, Hooters (Merrick Bank) is known for giving consumers that have filed bankruptcy higher than normal credit limits. I was approved for this card a year after discharge with a credit limit of $3250.00.

Household Bank and HSBC- I was approved for a Household Bank credit card a year after bankruptcy as well as the Best Buy Rewards Zone MasterCard by HSBC. HSBC is also the provider of the Orchard Bank credit cards, which are specifically for people with bad or no credit. The good thing about HSBC is that when you apply, you will go through a pre qualification process that does not pull your credit report, but will give you an idea of the card(s) you may qualify for in advance.

Capital One- I received a Platinum card from Capital One with a 0% balance transfer for a year. I did transfer a balance from a higher interest card, but was also approved for an Orbitz card by Capital One which allows me to earn rewards. I was approved for both of these cards 2 or more years after my bankruptcy was discharged. Capital One also has a pre qualification process that allows you to decide in advance if you are interested in the card(s) you may be offered.

It is important to know ahead of time which ones you may have a shot at before you go applying around as each inquiry will stay on your report for 2 years. If you rack up a bunch of inquiries, whether you were approved for the cards or not, it could appear as though you are credit shopping (ie in a pinch so trying to get a ton of credit fast) and could hurt your credit score. I should add that I had nothing on my credit report when I applied for this cards except for the accounts that were included in the bankruptcy (which were noted as such on the report). If you are a year or two out from your discharge and have managed to keep it clean otherwise, these cards are worth trying for.

For example, the cards I have that currently have the highest APR’s are Orbitz (23.9%), Hooters (21.45%), Target (25.24%) and Best Buy (22.99%).

First of all, I have to admit that I wasn’t completely aware that these particular cards had such outlandish interest rates. Which is a grave mistake to make if you’re trying to clean up your credit. You have to know what you’re paying. I knew that Hooters was pretty high and Target, just because it’s Target. I did not really know Orbitz and Best Buy were though, which is another reason to keep a spreadsheet of your credit cards.

The good news is that the Target card and Best Buy card have the two lowest balances, so essentially the Snowball Method would work. I could pay those off and then “snowball” those monthly payments onto the next lowest balance. BUT, the next lowest balances, are the lowest APR’s on my list of credit cards which are Capital One Platinum (13.99%) and Juniper (15.99%). So paying in order by highest APR is not always going to work with the Snowball Method.

I think instead, I’ll go to the next credit card with the highest APR as these are not only ridiculous but a large chunk of money. The two very lowest APRs are the Chase cards that I’m on the Hardship Program with. Part of the agreement with them is that my APR would be lowered to 6.00%, but the cards are closed. I’m not even fiddling with those at the moment because the payments are taken directly from my bank account and aren’t costing me as much in interest as a couple of the other cards. I also have to keep in mind that my debt to credit ratio has to lower to increase my credit score, which means I need to pay down the cards with the high balances.

Something else I’ve realized is that after bankruptcy, you may be stuck with some pretty crappy cards that require a lot of fees and are at the bottom of the credit card food chain. Even though I waited and avoided those cards, I still ended up with a lot of cards that are not much better than the bottom ones. Yes, they’re unsecured and no they don’t have additional fees or annual fees, but all in all, they’re still pretty crappy credit card deals. I would advise bankruptcy filers to hold out for the best cards with low APRs, which you can get…it  just takes a little time and patience. Once I get these paid down, I may try for some better credit cards but as far as bad deals and extreme interest rates go, I’m pretty much done with them.

How to Import My Account Information From This Bank

I have been trying to manage my finances with mint.com for a year now,  but for some reason one of my banks will still not update correctly.  The most frustrating part is when I was screaming that mint.com was the best thing that had ever happened to me, all of my accounts worked perfectly. This lasted for 2 weeks and ever since then, it will not. I have sent messages and pressed the help button and whatever else it says to do when your bank is so obscure it doesn’t work with the internet, but…it still isn’t working and now that I think about it, no one over there is really trying to help.

So, I’ve started searching for yet another personal finance/budget program. Since it’s only March I think I have time to get things going with a different system. I really want to get organized and I adore fancy little programs and software that do all of the work for you. Okay, maybe I’m lazy too.

There are so many to choose from though that I’m overwhelmed and have no idea which one to try next. It seems from all of the reviews that Quicken is one of the main programs that people like and my dad happened to have it (because he actually didn’t like it).

I’m 800% gung ho ready to get this party started and guess what? The Bank isn’t on Quicken either.  You know why? Quicken is mint.com. In fact, Quicken online isn’t available anymore and everyone is being shoved over to mint.com.What the Hell. I can still manually add my information in Quicken, but I really like the automatic updates that occur with every other account that I have. It’s just this one, small account that’s giving me grief. And guess what again? The account is the account with small town bank which I don’t like but have been afraid to close.

How Does a Girl Get a Budget Around Here?

I am now stuck with the decision of getting everything set up with Quicken and actually giving it a fair trial, or finding another personal finance program, either online or software or whatever and trying that one out before I get too far into Quicken. I was even prepared to pay for Quicken but now I’m not sure.

Which personal finance software is the best? It depends on what you need.

This is What I Need from My Software

1. Budgeting tools- I’d like to be able to look at what I’m spending in each area so I can decide what is ridiculous and what makes sense.

2. Automatic account updates – I want to pull my account information by pressing a button. Maybe two buttons, but that’s it. This is not the most important factor and I am willing to manually update the small account that currently isn’t available anywhere. The other accounts however, I am not willing to update manually because that would actually take me until next year to enter everything. I may as well use an Excel spreadsheet otherwise, and I don’t have time for that.

3. Pies and charts – I need to see where my money is going in the form of a circular pie chart. Pretty colors are preferable but I can live without that too.

4. Price – I’m thinking that less than $50 would be okay but free is even better. I realize that free isn’t always the best choice though, especially when dealing with money. If that makes sense.

5. Help means help – I am pretty self sufficient but when things start getting wonky, I would like assistance or at least be able to find what I need somewhere. I guess this means I just want halfway decent customer service. It’s technology, it’s online, I don’t expect anyone to hold my hand.

Quicken actually looks like it could be a nice program to use, but if anyone has any other suggestions…I’m wide open. (Or maybe I just need to get rid of that damn bank account.)

To address my two ridiculous reasons for renting instead of working toward buying I will say that buying a house is similar to deciding to have children. No one ever thinks it’s the “right” time. As far as #2 is concerned, I have decided to look harder. In my particular corner of the world, the housing arrangements vary from either really cheap and crappy to really nice and way too expensive. Yet, I know there has to be something in the middle that I will be happy raising my daughter in. Everyone knows that renting is throwing away money and I will not feel the least bit satisfied until I have some place of my own.

Still, there are things I need to get in order and here are the things I’ve come up with so far:

1) Pay down credit. I need to make a huge dent in what I owe in order to raise my credit score. This will help a great deal in getting a decent mortgage that I can pay and keep up with (which is my main concern).

2) Save a large down payment. I would like to have a large enough down payment saved up to help get a house with payments I can afford. I will need to be able to make the mortgage plus pay property taxes and insurance, which I am factoring into a monthly payment regardless of how it has to be paid. This means that I need to start saving more than the $100 I’m putting into my ING savings account.

3) Figure out my banking situation. This one is tough because I recently found out that one of the main banks that provides mortgages in my area is the small town bank that told me I would never make it as a single woman that has filed bankruptcy. I don’t wish to be prideful, but when I left that office in tears, I decided I would not ask them again for anything. Unfortunately, my parents’ realtor said that the Credit Union I adore won’t be able to provide any of the government programs for me. So either I need to start looking at other banks or I need to suck it up and eventually go back to little bank that I hate.

My bankruptcy is old enough that when combined with a clean credit report, it should be less of a problem when mortgage hunting. I am in no way delusional and know that in order to counter a bankruptcy from almost 7 years ago, I need to have perfect credit.  I really just need to save a lot more and pay down my credit cards a lot more, which seems daunting, but at one time, even acquiring credit seemed hopeless.

The biggest problem that weighs heavily on my mind is dealing with small town bank. What do you think? Suck it up…or find a lender somewhere else?

I know it’s easy to think that your credit sucks so badly that you don’t have a choice. In order to rebuild you have to start somewhere and any kind of denial can fool us into thinking that we have no choice. You do have a choice though. If for some reason you think your credit is the worst of the worst, I’d suggest just waiting it out a little while. It generally takes a year or two after filing to get any half way decent credit cards.

Anyway, here are some cards that I think are just downright horrid and should not be considered under any circumstance.

1.  Merchandise Only Cards

These cards are advertised as 100% guaranteed with no credit check and sometimes no application necessary. That alone should tell you something wonky is going on. You have to at least fill out an application and provide some personal information for any decent credit card. These cards usually offer an extremely high line of credit. Like $10,000.00. Like an amount you know yourself no legitimate bank is going to approve you for. Here’s the catch: you can only use these cards on merchandise that the card sells. A special “store” of sorts. You can’t use them anywhere else, for anything else. They also usually carry extremely ridiculous interest rates and furthermore, do not report your payment history to credit bureaus. Thus, a waste of your time and money.

Okay, so Horizon Gold says $500 (nothing outlandish), no APR and reports to “a major credit bureau”. It does, however state that it can only be used at the website. Still, in my opinion not a good deal. You can get a secured card with almost any bank that can at least be used at the grocery store if you need it.

2.  Fee Heavy Prepaid Cards

These are the cards that most post bankruptcy filers decide to give a whirl. The problem is that sometimes prepaid cards include obnoxious fees, such as an application fee, a processing fee, a monthly fee and a yearly fee. If it’s a prepaid card, you’re loading it with your own money in the first place. Add on all of the fees and you’re also paying to use your own money. These cards sometimes do not report to the credit bureaus either.

3.  Unsecured Cards with A Lot of Fees and Available Limit

Sure it’s unsecured, but again, the fees can add up to almost the entire limit that you are allowed. Here is an example from Applied Bank:

This card says “credit bureau reporting” which is probably better than none at all, although I’m not quite sure what it means. There are also no application or processing fees and cardholders receive a $500 credit limit. If you notice from the chart above, though, there is a monthly fee of $15.00 which starts the second year, plus the annual fee of $125 that you pay the first year. The APR is 29.99% and there is no grace period.

This seems to be a step up from a regular secured card, except with a secured card of course you have to pay a deposit which is held in case you default.

The Best of the Bad Credit-Credit Cards

This is why Orchard Bank is one of the better cards for those with bad credit. The fees are lower, but you also have a card that can be used anywhere as well as a payment history to help rebuild or build your credit. You can also answer a few short questions to see which card you will qualify for, and more than one bad credit applicant has been pleasantly surprised when they find out they’re approved for a better card than they thought.

Otherwise, like I said, wait a little bit. Here is the list of credit cards I was approved for just over a year after I filed Chapter 7.  Your credit is probably not as bad as you think, so don’t let that feeling of desperation cost you more money then it needs to.

Good luck!

1.  Chase Bank

Yes, I hated Chase Bank. Yes, I said they raped me because of the credit limit and interest rate slam. But that was yesterday and all I can do is move forward. I am still paying the monthly payments that were set up as part of the Hardship Program and even added the other Chase card to the program as well. The card was already closed and it doesn’t affect my credit score negatively; in fact if you’re having problems paying your bill I would actually recommend a Hardship Program. It lowered my interest and payments and the balance owing on the second card was actually lowered as well.  So although we’re not dating, we’re at least friends. Not BFF’s but at least I don’t break out into a rash when I think of them.

2. Canceling Satellite

I still think canceling Dish Network was a great decision. I’ve saved $70 a month for quite a while now (almost a year) and have lived just fine on DVDs. I will admit that once in a while when at my parents’ house or a someone else’s normal homes, I do miss cable television shows. Never enough to add it back though and pay the monthly fees.

3. Canceling the Land Line

What land line. I’m about to throw away the land line phone actually because I don’t ever plan on having one again. Saved at least $30 a month and this I can say I don’t miss it at all. In fact, I will go as far as saying that I think land lines in homes will become a thing of the past. Cell phones are more than capable of handling phone needs. It almost doesn’t make sense to have a phone at home AND a cell phone. I never did try a pay as you go phone, which would probably be cheaper, but since getting the iPhone I’ve become way too reliant on it to change anything.

4. Savings

I am still adding money every month to my savings account with ING. Ever since they had that contest that I didn’t win and I signed up for the automatic monthly transfer, the savings has been growing. Let me tell you, even though I forget about it, when I do think about that savings account it feels good. Knowing that you are saving instead of wishing you would each month is almost as awesome as finding free money. Almost but not really.

5. Debt

Things are getting paid off so I can see a light at the end of the financial tunnel. My medical bills are almost paid down as well as the dental bill (after setting up payment arrangements and asking for discounts). My credit cards need more work but I’m paying those down as well. Nothing is in collections and nothing has late payments so my credit score is well on its way back up.

Other News

I bought a pair of tall BearPaw boots. Kind of a cheaper version of the Uggs that I wanted, but now that I have them I don’t even want Uggs. These BearPaw boots are awesome and comfy and the warmest boots I’ve ever had. I can wear them with leggings and not freeze to death even though I live in American Siberia. I’m considering getting some for my daughter also.

I’m back in school to finish a couple degrees. I need to not only reduce my debt, but I need to make more money as well and furthering my education can only help. I know what you’re thinking. School loans are going to bring me back down into a black hole in a few years. I plan on having everything in order by then though so all I have to focus on is the school loans. I’m confident it’ll be okay.

Am I still bankrupt? I pay my bills, I feed my child, I’m happy, she’s happy. Yeah, I am kind of still bankrupt but I really can’t complain. It’s getting better for us and it’ll get better for you.

Really.

If, however, you have filed bankruptcy and are credit card hunting, you may qualify for the Hooters MasterCard. It is an unsecured credit card and is widely known among bankruptcy filers for giving larger than normal credit lines to people that have filed bankruptcy. It isn’t a great card, but when you’re in the process of repairing credit, it’s not so bad.

The Basics

This card is issued by Merrick Bank. There is no annual fee or any other fee for the Hooters MasterCard and the APR is determined by the individual, mine as a post bankruptcy filer is currently 21.45%.  A little over a year after my bankruptcy was discharged I was approved for a credit line of $3,250.00. I have heard of people with bad credit getting more and I’ve heard less. Be aware that if you get the message that your application is being considered, it really is. This does not mean you’ll be denied as many many applicants get the letter of approval.

Other features:

• No Annual Fee (for qualified applicants)
• Zero Liability on unauthorized purchases.
• Cash Advances at over 900,000 MasterCard ATMs
• Credit Building Opportunities

Rewards Program 

Surprise! The Hooters MasterCard has a rewards program. You will earn 5 points for each dollar spent on Hooters purchases and one point on all other purchase. The points you can earn are unlimited and never expire. You can redeem the points for gift cards, merchandise or cash back that is posted to your account.

Obviously, this is not a great card. I didn’t see too much merchandise I’d be interested in and I probably eat at Hooters once a year. It is a good card if you have bad credit or have filed bankruptcy, simply because you have a good chance of being approved eventually. I want to mention that it does state that those who are “well qualified” receive large credit limits and low interest rates so it may be a great card even for those with great credit.

It is also one of the few cards available that includes a rewards program. Remember…just because you have credit it doesn’t mean you have to use it. I would suggest not going crazy with the Hooters MasterCard. Use it and pay it off. At least you have an open trade line with a significant credit line to help in credit repair.