Many years ago, more that I would like to admit, I and a couple of other guys, had a very profitable transportation business in Houston, Texas.
We were generating over a half a million dollars a month in revenue with a very healthy profit margin.
The bulk of our business was air charters moving oilfield equipment all over the world.
I had good credit and several credit cards that I used quite extensively flying all over the world arranging air charters.
It was not unusual for me spend $20,000 to $30,000 per month on my American Express and Mastercard.
Then, almost overnight, the oilfield business crashed and so did our business.
A couple of our clients could not pay us what they owed and I could not pay my bank card bills.
My personal credit went into the tank' and I lost all of my Bank Cards.
Life wasn't too much fun for a couple of years.
Our company went out of business and I had to go out and look for work.
Most of my work experience involved project management and travel.
Without credit cards, travel was impossible.
That made finding a job almost impossible.
I don't remember how exactly, but somehow I discovered secured credit cards.
You simply put a down a deposit or sum of money with the credit card company and they will issue you a card with the same limit as the amount of money that you have on deposit with them.
If you deposit $1000.
00 with them, you have a $1000.
00 credit limit.
If you deposit $10,000, you have a $10,000 credit limit.
A secured visa was the answer to my problem.
I was able to scrape up a couple of thousand dollars, enough to be able to travel some, book airfares, check into hotels and rent cars.
That opened up my employment possibilities and I was able to go back to work again.
Not only was I able to go back to work again, over a period of time I was able to rebuild my credit and after a year or so, was able to start getting unsecured credit cards in my name again.
If you're faced with the same or similar dilemma, try it.
Scrape up some money, most people can round up at least $500 to a $1000 or so, if they try hard enough, and go get a secured credit card.
Deposit as much money as you can raise with bank that issues secured cards, fill out their application and within a couple of days you will have a shiny new credit card in your pocket that you can use anywhere credit cards are accepted.
You will be back on the road to repairing your credit and you will have the ability to travel, eat in restaurants, stay hotels, be able to rent cars and enjoy the conveniences that carrying a credit cards allows you to have.