Question:
I’ve had a U.S. Bank Secured Visa Card for more than a year now. I have perfect payment history (paid off my card in full each month) and my FICO score is now sitting around 660. How do I get my card unsecured and will I be approved? – Josh, New Mexico
Answer:
U.S bank has some pretty hard rules when it comes to unsecuring one of their secured cards. Firstly you must have the card for at least one year, customer service reps have confirmed this and U.S bank won’t even consider removing the security until the card has been active for a full year.
You need a combination of a FICO score being 680+ and a history of paying the secured card on time. The score of 680 isn’t an absolute must, there are reports of people being graduated to an unsecured card with a score of ~650, but all of these people have a perfect payment history with their secured card.
As your score is 660 and you state you’ve got an excellent credit history with the secured card, I’d go ahead and call them (use the number found on the back of your card or statement). Make sure you state that you want to unsecure your card, do NOT make a separate application as this will be a hard pull on your credit report and cause your score to drop by about 5 points. Also request that they refund the annual fee that you’ve just paid. Unsecuring your current card will only be a soft pull and won’t effect your FICO score. ColinC in the comments was hit with a hard pull on his TransUnion credit report, so it looks like this is no longer the case.
If you are approved for your unsecured card, your security deposit will be released and you will be upgraded to their U.S. Bank Visa® Platinum Card product (which thankfully has no annual fee). Your credit limit will be the same as what you had on your secured card.
If you want to apply for one of their products with flexperks, it’s recommended you wait at least six months to build some credit history with your new card before applying (this will be considered a separate application, it’s not possible to upgrade to a card with flexperks from a secured card).
On your credit report, the only thing that changes is account number and description. This’ll help you with your average age of accounts and oldest account (if this is the oldest account you have) both of which are factors in calculating the FICO score.
Hope this helps, if you’ve had experience with graduating a U.S bank credit card let us know in the comments.
[Read: Best Secured Credit Cards]
Datapoint:
US Bank Secured Visa Opened 1/1/2014
Oldest Credit Line 12/7/2013
TU FICO Score 741 via Discover
Credit Sesame 743
Put in request to unsecure via # on the back of card on 1/2/2014
Got a will notify in 7-10 days
Called in 1/6/2014, Showing US Bank Platinum as of 1/5/2014
Will update as to whether this was a hard or soft pull
Ughh…. Hard Pull TU
Try calling them and asking them to remove it, just say the phone rep said it wouldn’t be a hard pull.
I’ve just requested that my US Bank secured card be converted to unsecured and hope I have better luck than you did Eric.
Here’s my history … It’s been a while since I ran my FICO but it’s right around 700 (+ or – 10). I’ve had the secured card for 17 months, never used more than 22% of my CL and paid the full balance due ever month. I’ve recently taken out a mortgage (5 months ago) and depending on which CB you check with I have 1 or 2 satisfied judgements. I’ll let you know what they say in a week or so. Wish me luck!
Did you graduate to the unsecured card?
The above info didn’t work for me, so take the advice with a grain of salt.
My score is now 689 and have had a US Bank secured card for two years. My payments have always been on time and mostly two or three times the minimum amounts due. I just received a letter of denial stating that a BK, that was discharged in 2010, was the reason.
The way I see it is US Bank is making interest off my $500 deposit. They’re charging me 22% per balance. Why would they lend me money when they have such a good thing going and are not on the hook for anything? They’re charging me interest on my money and I don’t see why they would change that.
Do you have a bankruptcy on file? What did they say when you called to unsecure your card?
I called them and they said you have to be 5 years 1 month out of the bankruptcy. So it will alway be a hard NO when you file bankruptcy. My score is over 750 now, and they still wouldn’t upgrade the card. I’m just gonna keep it and pay the fee cause I don’t want it to hurt my credit, but basically they said thats the rule.