Thread: How long for WF secured card to "graduate"?

I have 2 checking and savings accounts with them(ones for online stuff) and just applied for their secured card and on their site it says it will "graduate" from secured to unsecured after a while; and was just wondering if anyone had an idea of how long that would take.

Will it be decided based on my credit or how well I pay off the card each month? because I have horrible bredit... I owe like 7 or 8 people $4000 total(most of it is between 2 things though) with a credit score of like 420. 2 years ago it was 790(even with the medical bills)

Also, how much will this even help raise my credit with me still owing most of the creditors that I owe? I plan on paying off some of the smaller ones over the next couple of months and bring it down to maybe 3 people that I owe $3500 to (one is $1800 another is 800 (2 med bills) and another for $800ish)

Panama City, FL? So you had a Wachovia before? Wells Fargo, in my humble opionion, has a high opinion of themselves. I can't stand them. Stepping off my soapbox.....I have heard that WF will do a one time review (and it can be at any time within a year or year and a half) and if you do not qualify for unsecured status, that was your once chance. So best to clean up your report within the first 6 months of having your Wells Fargo Secured card so that when they review the account after about a year you stand a better chance of graduating.

Citibank unsecures after 18 months and BofA usually after 12. Wells Fargo is a bit more mysterious with when they unsecure. But I have seen in more than one forum that the account is reviewed only once and if it failed to be graduated at that time, it will never be graduated.

Hopefully others with experience can chime in.

First pay off all your debts and be very responsible with your secured card. Always pay it off on time, never exceed the limit, etc. Then after 6-18 months they might convert it.

Frankly, 420 is the lowest score I have ever heard of so you have a long way to go.

Originally Posted by DoingHomework

First pay off all your debts and be very responsible with your secured card. Always pay it off on time, never exceed the limit, etc. Then after 6-18 months they might convert it.

Frankly, 420 is the lowest score I have ever heard of so you have a long way to go.

Agreed, you almost have to work to get a 420; really anything under a 450. Not sure if the OP was trying to be funny by saying 420 (a slang word for marijuana) but yeah, 420 is beyond bad. Even people with a bankruptcy and a foreclosure rarely go below a 490. I would check your score again...I cant imagine Self-righteous Wells Fargo giving anybody a card with that sort of score.

Wells Fargo is an interesting case. When they bought failing banks in 2008 they inherited a lot of bad debt and that required they set aside huge loss reserves. That made their books look very bad.

They have been aggressively cutting bad debt by revaluing it - figuring out which ones are truly bad and which ones are salvageable. This lets them decrease the loss reserves that they carry. It sounds like an accounting gimmick and it sort of is. But whatever it is, it allows them to recover billions of dollars that end up looking like cash income on their financial statements.

What does this have to do with credit cards? Well, it's a relatively simple to matter to apply the same risk models to credit cards. I'm not sure if that is what they are doing but I suspect they are. If so, it will be extremely difficult to get WF to extend credit to risky borrowers regardless of what they did in the past. It's just not worth it to them.

Originally Posted by DoingHomework

What does this have to do with credit cards? Well, it's a relatively simple to matter to apply the same risk models to credit cards. I'm not sure if that is what they are doing but I suspect they are. If so, it will be extremely difficult to get WF to extend credit to risky borrowers regardless of what they did in the past. It's just not worth it to them.

Don't get me wrong, I admire the way they do business. They reward customers who have money in savings and have good credit; the way it should be. If more banks would have been strict, maybe we would not have gotten into this much trouble. Considering Wells Fargo is one of the Big 4 banks, they issue the least amount of credit cards. They did hurt themselves with the Wachovia merger because Wachovia had purchased Golden West (did business as World Savings). Golden West had a ton of toxic mortgages. I figured it served WF right because they swooped in a stole Wachovia from Citibank. I think Wachovia would have totally crippled Citibank, so WF did them a favor. Up until the Wachovia deal, WF was sitting pretty.

I have never even done business with WF, they just rub me the wrong way for some reason. And I really don't care for their outdated logo and those 70s colors (orange, yellow, red).

i have the same question too because i got a note on my statement last month that im showing good payments and in a few months i might be able to graduate from a secured card.. i opened my secured cc in may 2010.. so its been 7 months. been paying all my balances every month, i have 2 checking and 2 savings account with wells fargo, and i have a time deposit with them.

last week i walked into their branch and asked the timeline of my secured cc to graduate. so this lady banker got my cc and punched in information. i told her to check the status of my secured credit card's graduation to a regular one.. but she was stupid and opened me a new credit card application. i found out a day after because i got an alert that there's was a pull by wells fargo on my credit. stupid girl applied me for a new account and gave me a hard inquiry.. grrr! i stopped applying cc's coz im planning to get a car next year, i wanted to raise my score. so then i just let it go since it already hit my credit. a week after, i got a letter from wells fargo. i thought it was a denial letter.. but it was good news! well, it said the new card will come soon, etc. so i called Customer service of wells fargo.. they approved me a 2,700 CL. wow! i was surprised also! the biggest credit limit.. i guess having an bank account with them and a secured credit card helped me build my relationship with them and trusted me with a great starting limit.

i dont really need one coz i wanted to stick with 1 visa (my secured wells fargo with a $300 limit), 1 mastercard (capital one secured with a $350 limit), walmart store credit card with a 1,400 limit, and an american express green charge card. i only have 11 months of credit history. so far im satisfied but i guess i'll settle with 2 visa cc's now.. haha