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I helped a 78 year old neighbor apply for a secured credit card but he was turned down for having "no credit history".

He has had no credit cards for 30-40 years, no credit accounts, nothing. On NerdWallet he shows up essentially blank. On https://www.annualcreditreport.com/ it shows some bank accounts but no credit accounts.

He NEEDS a credit history because it's a requirement to apply for Senior housing. He has a fixed, though low, income stream from Social Security until he dies. He has a checking account and has never had any bad credit events.

Where can he go to build a credit history?

OP here. These things failed:

  1. A "starter" or "bad credit" card application.
  2. A "secured" card application with a big bank.
  3. A "secured" card with a Credit Union. The Credit Union was reasonable, but rejected based on over 50% of income going to rent.

What worked so far:

  1. Adding the senior as an "authorized user" on one of my cards. This requires no credit check, but should result in reporting to the credit agencies. With Capital One I was able to get a separate credit card number, separate spend limit, and separate accounting on the statements.

The site "NerdWallet" was the most useful in terms of forum advice and data.

JoeTaxpayer
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Bryce
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2 Answers2

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Try a rental reporting service. These are services that act as an intermediary between the tenant and landlord, and then report payments to credit bureaus.

Note that these are reported specifically as rental entries, and the standard FICO score doesn't utilize this. However, alternate scoring systems do.

user71659
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I would expect he has utility bills, cable, phone, or some other kind of payments he has made.

Perhaps copies of those bills could be used. Bank statement maybe?

See if he qualifies for membership in a local credit union, they probably have some ideas.

New info: Over 50% of his income going to rent.

I'm not sure how to overcome this unless getting (or becoming) a roommate is an option - which would maybe take the ration below 50%. I thought that they'd give a secured credit card to anyone and I'm not sure why they wouldn't. I expect there's a reason and will ask around.

J. Chris Compton
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