sharprc

I'll be working in Columbus so unfortunately I'm gonna have to get some wheels.

Pulaski

(For the benefit of anyone else reading this). Even if you don't own a car and/or plan to drive frequently, if you can drive you should get a drivers license because your UK/non-US license will not be valid after a few weeks (depending on the state, not more than three months, and as little as 10 days).

So if you rent a car, or are offered a car to borrow, or need to rent a small moving van, etc, you are going to need a US (state) drivers license. So even if you don't expect to get a car, put "get a drivers license" on you list of things to do in the first couple of months after you arrive.

ScousePete

Agreed. What I really meant to say was that you *at least* need to get a state ID, but a drivers license is much preferred.

evanstim

Ref finances: because you do not have a US credit record, getting a credit card will be difficult. We set up a Bank Account pretty easily when we moved over in 2015, which obviously had a Visa debit card, but the Bank wanted a huge deposit - to be held in "escrow" as they call it, not that I think it is held by a 3rd party - for a credit card to be issued. This would have been for 6 months, after which the deposit would have been refunded. We were not inclined to do this, and use of a debit card is not optimal in a lot of circumstances, so late one Wednesday evening when I was on business in Colorado City I phoned Amex, who were absolutely terrific. I had two Amex cards in the UK, and I spent 20 minutes on the phone with an "International Transfer" advisor, the end result being that on the Friday we were in receipt of 2 Amex credit cards with a $10,000 limit.

You'll know when you have a built a credit rating, as you'll start to get inundated - meaning multiple offers each week - with credit offers from Capital One and other bottom-of-the-barrel credit providers. After 6 months of paying the card of each month, Amex also offered me a Platinum card and upped the limit on my card to $17,000 (Note that we never spent anything like that - we averaged a spend of about $2,500 per month).

I cannot speak highly enough of my experience with Amex. It is also very widely accepted in the US, much more so than in the UK.

MidAtlantic

Capital One.. bottom-of-the-barrel???

evanstim

You think Capital One are not? Interesting... They are big, certainly, but personally, I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole, due to their reputation. I do understand they fulfil a market need, but I do not see myself as in that space in the market.

Jack8602

Odd re-opening a 4 month old thread to throw numbers around

I've had capital one since day one of moving here and not had an issue.

You sir, are clearly above them with your dual $10k amex cards

robtuck

Capital One certainly do appear quite quickly when building a credit file in the early days, so I am guessing they are a bit more open to lower credit ratings is the point being made.

evanstim

Actually, I stumbled across this thread when searching the forum for an answer to a question I had. I thought my experience and the suggestion to try Amex may have been useful to the OP. I did not "re-open a 4-month old thread to throw numbers around".

I am sorry that you feel the need to use the forum to offend those who were merely being trying to be helpful.