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WHOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

lots of wrong advice from GFY members (nothing unusual)
..some good advice too..

but let me add mine Since I am new to this country (lived here 14 months) I have spent a lot of time researching how to establish good credit FAST.. ive found a lot of helpful tips and it has worked successfully for me:


get a secured credit card
Bank of america now offers a SEMI secured credit card - it is $99 deposit and gives you $500.. (this is a good starting point for a kid)

DO NOT pay your credit card off in full every month. I was doing this for the first 3 months until I got some better information.
Credit score companies DONT like to see you paying off your cards in TOTAL each month because generally when ppl pay off their card in full it means they are about to make a big life change - such as sold their house or changed job.
What they have seen in the past is that usually when ppl do this - their payments go DOWNHILL after the initial "large: payoff.. so it's just not a good sign to them.

Pay off the minimum each month x 2 or 3 (on a BOA $500 limit card - the min is $15 a month if you are maxed out to the limit)

One other important thing to understand about credit scoring companies is that they dont just look at how much you pay and if its on time the important thing is how much credit is USED compared to how much is AVAILABLE to you.

They DONT want to see you maxed out to your limit all the time... even if you DO pay it off in full each month.
Don't go over 60% of you credit availability - try to prove to the credit scoring cos that even tho you HAVE credit you dont NEED it desperately

there are many companies who will extend credit to someone who has no credit and they will report it back to the 3 scoring cos.
Often you can find a car dealersship that will do this for you.
you may need 50% cash upfront and the remaining 50% is on credit but it help to establish a rating faster.

After 12 months you should have an established credit rating and if you keep working it right after 18months to 2 years the score should be excellent.

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