The short answer to the title of this article, do preapproved credit cards really exist, is yes. That yes, however, comes with a qualifier. Only certain types of credit cards are in fact preapproved. Unsecured cards are absolutely not. If any one should offer you an unsecured card that they claim is guaranteed to be approved then you know it’s a scam.
And here’s why that is. No bank or financial institution in their right mind, unless they’re trying to go out of business, will give unsecured credit to anyone that they do not thoroughly check out in advance to see if they are in fact creditworthy. Never before has that been so true is it is now.
Banks and financial institutions have been hit hard by record credit card defaults over the past couple of years. The poor economy has wreaked havoc on their bottom lines and they can ill afford to set themselves up in a position where they are vulnerable to more defaults.
Some are teetering on the brink of survival as I write this. Remember how many financial institutions took billions of dollars of taxpayer bailout money? The reason they needed it was in no small part because of the poor judgment they showed in granting credit to unqualified borrowers for both credit cards and subprime mortgages. They thought it was easy money, and it was at first… until it all blew up in their faces.
Preapproved Credit Cards
Having said that, there are in fact preapproved credit cards in the form of secured credit cards. These offers are usually sent to people that have moderate to severe credit problems. The advantage of using these cards is that it gives these consumers the chance to repair their credit ratings.
Having a strong credit rating opens the door to getting favorable interest rates on such things as auto loans, mortgages and credit cards (in some cases anyway). While it is true that credit is very tight right now, it won’t stay like that forever and in order to be approved for any of the forms of credit that I just mentioned consumers will have to have at least a good to excellent credit history to stand behind.
Typically the credit markets and the unemployment rate have had an inverse relationship. When the unemployment rate is low credit is rather easy to get because people are working and spending money. When the unemployment rate is high like it has been… well people that don’t work can’t pay their bills.
So the bottom line is that yes indeed, there absolutely are preapproved credit cards available on the market. They are however, designed for a specific need as we have pointed out here. If you should happen to believe that it may be beneficial to you to check out these types of offers further then by all means look into it. Just be very careful and do your homework so you know exactly what they entail.
Posts Tagged ‘ Subprime Mortgages ’
The game played by politicians is to take an idea from their own agenda and then frame it in a way that sells it to the other side. When the politicians meet in the middle, bipartisan solutions to problems emerge. This reflects the fact there is no monopoly on good ideas, only simple good solutions to difficult problems. In the healthcare debate, one of the solutions proposed by the GOP was to allow people to buy their insurance across state lines. This sounds a good idea. As the law stands, every state regulates the sale of insurance within its own borders. This limits the size of the market. If insurers had to compete with each other on a regional or national level, the premium rates would fall and every citizen would get a better deal. Well, let’s look a little more closely at how it would actually work.
At present, every state has a Department of Insurance to regulate the insurance companies licensed to sell policies. This is a reasonably effective system for consumer protection. But if regional or national insurers could sell policies into many states, it would break the regulatory system. It would no longer be local supervision of local companies. Insurers would decide where to establish and would, of course, choose the states which had the weakest consumer protection regulations, i.e. where they could make the most profit. Think banks and finance companies. These companies broke the US economy and produced the recession because their sales of subprime mortgages and associated derivatives were unregulated. Now apply the same thing to interstate insurance. As a final thought on this issue, remember all US states have different laws and one state cannot enforce another’s laws. That is sovereignty for you. So the state where an insurer is based cannot protect consumers under another state’s laws.
Secondly, opening the market across state lines allows insurers to cherry pick the best people to insure. Without regulations to limit the right to discriminate against people for pre-existing conditions and to increase premiums as people get older and fall ill more often, insurers will just take their profit from all the healthy people and forget about the rest. Thus, instead of increasing consumer choice, it would have the reverse effect. Most insurance companies would close their branches in individual states. Those that remained would keep all the aging and less healthy people. As their claims rise, the companies will make a loss and close. Without a law to mandate regional or national companies to offer some health coverage, it is likely the number of uninsured people would rise.
When you add all this up, it is a good thing the GOP’s proposal was rejected. Health insurance plans are complicated enough without having to change a whole mass of federal and state laws to allow interstate sales. This is not to say that consumers might benefit if there was more competition in the insurance market generally. With a real free market, properly regulated, consumers would get a better deal both in the terms of coverage and in the premium rates they pay. As it is, you must get multiple quotes to find cheap health insurance. Anticipating their profits will take a hit following this reform, insurers have been raising their premium rates. You must shop around to find the most affordable policy.