Opportunities for credit come in the mail if you are doing certain things or member of certain organizations. I have found that if you are going to school, you are a target for credit card repair companies to send you multiple offers in the mail. You are gaining an education and are going to have more money earned to pay for things than those people who do not go to school, college or university.

If you join a frequent flyer organization, even if you don’t fly very often or at all, this will put you on a list of preferred offers from credit card companies to offer you opportunities to apply for their credit cards.

Opportunities come in a wide variety with multiple interest rates, pay back plans, credit limits and penalties if late or over limit. I am finding that credit card companies put in the fine print that they can check your credit when ever they feel like it and if they see your credit score drop below a certain point, that they determine, they can increase your interest rate from that nice 6% you started with to 19, 24 or even 29%. The highest I have seen an interest rate is 33%. I suppose this could go even higher if the credit card companies can get away with it.

It would be important to compare the differences in credit cards not only for interest rates, credit limits and penalty factors, but also for rewards for purchases and length of time with the company. There are cards that give you cash back or cards that give your flight rewards. Some will give you products to choose from a catalogue. If you don’t fly much, then getting a card with flight rewards may not be the best plan for you. Get one that fits your life style and remember to get that card paid off every month or you will be paying for every penny of the “reward” you are getting rather than have it be a great asset for you by paying your card off every month.

There are many opportunities to start establishing credit for you. Some people have no problem applying for a credit card or signature loan from the beginning. Let’s establish why and what you can do to get yourself in that position.

Someone who has a steady job and worked there for a long time has established a history of stability. They aren’t jumping around with different jobs and show that they are valued as an employee.

Someone who has only one residence on their credit file also shows stability and has established that they are not flighty or other serious problem with staying stable in one location. These points are well considered when applying for credit of any kind.

I have also established that living in a particular area has an effect on credit score and whether you can get a loan simply because of where you live. It is not pronounced, but could become a big factor in the future. The factors involved are if you live in a rough section of town or if you live in an affluent section of town. The credit bureaus my credit repair collection agency credit are gathering enough data now to be able to determine enough fact to consider this in the now or in the near future.

Secured loans are just what they suggest… loans that are secured by something of value that you own, such as a home, a car, a boat, accounts receivables, or some other item of value that you can convince your loan office is of worth and they will take the risk to loan against.

One of the reasons you would do this is you need the money… duh! Ok, of course you need the money, but the point is that you need the money for something… say, to get a business started, or because you don’t have enough of a down payment to satisfy the loan company who is giving you the loan. A secured loan helps you get the money or the item you want before the bank trusts you enough to do it without. Some loans never have enough trust to secure it with just your signature, such as a mortgage, or a car.

Ok, how does a secured loan work? When you go to sign your name on the signature line, the loan company is saying that you will need to put up the value of the property, item, and vehicle in case you default on the loan. If you stop making payments, they want to know that they can get their money out of the property even if it is a hassle to take possession, then sell it and perhaps lose some of the value. They will somehow get most of the money out of it, regardless. Now, you on the other hand have just tanked your credit score, because the loan company will report lates, then charge-offs, foreclosure, or repossession on your experian business credit file, thus your score has been devastated.

However, secured loans are a great way to get your credit established and get to the point of an unsecured loan that will show low risk and start your credit scores out right.

Starting September 2007, the newest version of the FICO scoring module will ignore all authorized user information when computing scores. The company that created FICO, Fair Isaac Corporation, changed the formula after learning that some credit repair companies were “buying” authorized user slots on the credit cards of people with good scores and “renting” those slots to strangers with bad credit to quickly boost their scores. This made it look like the bad credit person had a long history of build good credit and credit card balance with a high credit limit and very low balance, thus effectively lowering their debt to credit ratio and increasing their history. Credit scores would increase dramatically for them. Not a bad idea and since it still works for the older scoring modules of which most creditors still use, I would suggest not “buying” a slot but borrowing a family members slot on a good card to do the same thing. We call it “piggybacking”.