CREDIT HISTORY / SCORE
 

Hi Everyone,

Been living in America now since the middle of august now and just got my first job working for the school district.

My biggest question is how can i get a credit card, lease a car as i have no credit score.

Any advice would be fantastic

Paul

Re: CREDIT HISTORY / SCORE
 

Hi

Try fat brits guide to credit and finance in the Wiki section. Also, do a search for credit as this topic comes up quite a lot and there is loads of great advice on here. You might also want to search for AIG which is a company that for a $400 fee will give you access to credit cards/insurance etc that you wouldn't normally get access to withour a US credit history.
Hope this helps.

Re: CREDIT HISTORY / SCORE
 

I moved your thread to the general USA forum, your question will get more attention here.

Rene
Moderator

Re: CREDIT HISTORY / SCORE
 

thanks

Re: CREDIT HISTORY / SCORE
 

Is there a way to work out what your credit score is likely to be?

We moved across in March, got bank accounts and credit cards immediately, and a car loan a month later (all from credit union). We use the credit cards but clear them every month, and paid off a third of the car loan immediately and are making monthly payments on the rest to build credit history. We want to get a mortgage (also from the credit union), but they have advised us not to request our credit file as it counts as a hit. However, we have no idea what our score is yet, and obviously that will determine how good a mortgage interest rate we can get.

Re: CREDIT HISTORY / SCORE
 

You can request a free credit report each year. I'm not sure whether it's one from each of the three, or one out of the three, but Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax do credit reports.

From what others are saying here, 7 months is not long to build a credit history (score on its own is insufficient). Especially in today's climate. You could well be better off in the long run by waiting another year or so and get a far better interest rate and, presumably if you're saving, a larger deposit.

Re: CREDIT HISTORY / SCORE
 

We have no recent credit history but my husband did buy a car as soon as he got here in April with a high interest rate which we will re-finance ASAP. We just got a mortgage for a house at 4% fixed for 15 years with a low down-payment. We were approved at first for a 30 year but this is much better. It wasn't easy getting the mortgage because of the lack of credit history etc. and new regulations and they wanted incredible amounts of paperwork. Apart from all the various tax forms from 3 countries and other documentation, they wanted a final settlement statement of when we sold our house 18 months ago plus a statement showing the purchase agreement! The house info was in storage with our furniture in the UK and unobtainable. The statement about selling I can certainly understand but why the purchase agreement? After a few frantic phone calls to the two solicitors involved we got it taken care of. It can be done as we did it but with the new regulations it isn't easy anymore to get a mortgage. This week I have the fun and games of buying a car. We put it off until the house was taken care of so it didn't affect our credit score. We have no credit cards and don't want any.

Re: CREDIT HISTORY / SCORE
 

Can i ask who you managed to get a mortgage with and how you went about it?

Re: CREDIT HISTORY / SCORE
 

If you are working for a school district you will probably be able to get everything you need through them, they usually have deals with banks but probably better, credit unions.

Re: CREDIT HISTORY / SCORE
 

We went through a mortgage broker who was very good. She guided us through the whole process and plus she found an error at closing that would have cost us money. The company she found for us was Nationstar Mortgage here in TX.

Re: CREDIT HISTORY / SCORE
 

Research into secured credit card option or even American Express Global transfer scheme (if you had an American express before that is)

Re: CREDIT HISTORY / SCORE
 

If you have an American spouse, then you can get co-sign status on their credit cards/loans/mobile phone contracts to build credit. Once you have *some* credit, I believe you can get secured cards etc. pretty easily. With no zero, I have been denied for 3 different secured cards in the past.

The whole issue is just crazy though; in a global and interconnected economy, with huge international banks, why doesn't credit cross borders? :blink:

Re: CREDIT HISTORY / SCORE
 

Wow, you got denied for a secure credit card - I've never heard of that...

It's totally secure for the banks - they have your money!!

Seems ridiculous to me too that they can't check international credit. I have a secured card but got denied on a normal credit card - I've had 2 mortgages and 3 credit cards in the UK, never missed a payment and I'm in a good job. It's a pain building up credit, especially when you have to lock up cash and just have it sit there to get a secured credit card.

I'm going to get myself an AMEX when I have enough credit. At elast then you can transfer it globally. I had one through my bank in the UK but since it wasn't through AMEX themselves, they wouldn't let me transfer it...

Re: CREDIT HISTORY / SCORE
 

Yes, I was pretty confused too. They always tell me in the bank that it'll go through no problem and then I just never hear from them. When I follow up, they say it was denied. It's infuriating. :huh:

Re: CREDIT HISTORY / SCORE
 

Does UK recongnize US credit score?