![]() ![]() ![]() This condition can be temporary -your credit score might still be low even though your finances have recovered, since missed payments lower your credit score for seven years - but many Americans who struggle financially never achieve the stability they’d need to keep a high credit score. More commonly, secured card customers have low credit scores – the typical customer’s FICO is in the 500s - an obvious indication that they’ve struggled in the past to pay bills and to make ends meet. ![]() If you’re new-to-credit but you have a checking account, and you also realize that your odds of being approved for an unsecured credit card are pretty high if you walk into a branch of your bank (of course, not everyone realizes this), you’re not likely to find a secured card attractive. Some secured card customers are “new-to-credit,” but major banks such as Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Discover have all been known to give out credit cards, at least with small credit limits, to people without credit history. Santucci has found that only one in four secured card customers pays their credit card bill in full every month. Think about that for a second: People are putting down a $200 deposit, to get a $200 credit limit, and the product makes money because people then borrow against their own deposit at a 26.99 percent interest rate - one of the highest in the industry - and get hit with late fees up to $39 when they fail to make payments on time. The minimum security deposit you have to make depends on your risk as an applicant. If you apply for a Capital One secured card and get approved, you’ll initially be assigned a $200 credit limit, contingent on you sending in a security deposit of either $49, $99, or $200. I know most secured card customers are in no position to absorb a financial shock - and, unfortunately, having your checking account data leaked puts you in a much more dangerous position than a simple breach of your credit card number, or even your Social Security number. For a short stint during that time, I was in charge of the secured card product. I worked at Capital One for five years, from 2013 to 2018. Of course, given that these incomes are self-reported, and that credit card companies aren’t required to validate the income of all credit card applicants, this income data is almost certainly overstated: Plenty of people know they can get declined for a credit card for being too poor. And who are those consumers? They don’t have a lot of money: Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia researcher Larry Santucci has found that the median income of secured card customers is $35,000, compared to $50,000 for Americans with unsecured credit cards. The fact that bank account credentials were compromised raises the stakes for those consumers: even compared to credit card fraud, resolving checking account fraud is no walk in the park, and the costs here will be borne by people who can’t afford to take a hit.įor consumers who don’t think they can get approved for a normal credit card, secured cards can be appealing. But borrowers need to put down a security deposit in order to obtain one, which requires access to the borrower’s bank account information. For secured card applicants, who tend to be low-income, bank account information was compromised as well.Ī secured card normally resembles other subprime credit cards - they still report to the credit bureaus, they still charge interest and late fees, and you can still default on the card if you don’t make your payments. The hacker, Paige Thompson, gained access to personal information such as income, address, and credit scores for seemingly all recent applicants to Capital One credit cards. After the Equifax, Target, Home Depot, and Marriott hacks, it can be easy to shrug off the news of another leak, but one group of consumers is at particular risk in the Capital One breach: 80,000 Americans who applied for secured credit cards with the company. The Capital One breach announced recently compromised the data of 100 million Americans, which is nearly 40 percent of all U.S. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |