Some advice for a newbie here please ..

I filed a Chapter & in July 1997 and was discharged in December that year. Since then I haven’t applied for credit of any kind and have been an authorized user on my wife’s AMEX. We are approaching the ten year mark in a year and was beginning to consider applying for credit ( unsecured ).

My FICO is 738 but I have no open lines of credit at all. My wife’s FICO is 780.

I would like to either apply for a card on my own or maybe refinance the house with her rather then her name alone on the mortgage. Also we might look into buying out a leased car together.

I was just rejected for an HSBC MasterCard.

Can anyone shed any light on how my credit will be looked upon both on the secured and unsecured applications ?

HSBC most likely denied you because of a lack of history. Most companies want to see at least a little something there.

If your wife has other cards, and she added you as the authorized user on them, that could help.

With your bankruptcy being so old, everything in the filing should be long gone. Even so, check your reports make sure nothing is reporting wrongly.

Avoid applying for creditors that you included in the bankruptcy - they may have a LONG memory even if they are no longer showing up on your reports.

I would suggest either Juniper or Capital One. From what I've read here, people have had good results with them.