A Secured Card is a good way to go; I applied at CapitalOne shortly after my Discharge and promptly got denied; I applied again a month later and got approved. Here's the wrinkle with the CapOne Secured card; the max credit limit you can obtain with a deposit of $849 is only $1,000; nowhere near enough to be even remotely useful for my normal monthly spending habits. I tried paying it off once per week so I could keep using it, but apparently that triggers some sort of an Anti-Money Laundering protocol which in turn means they put a hold on the funds you paid for 12 days (meaning even though the card is paid off, you can't use it). After two months I paid the card off and closed it.
My next step was to research banks which have Secured Credit Cards which allow for much higher credit limit possibilities. I found three good options, Bank of America (my then current bank) with a max deposit/limit of $5,000, Wells Fargo with a max deposit/limit of $10,000, and TD Bank with the same limits of BofA.
My BofA experience: I applied at BofA and they also declined me because of the Chapter 13; I'd been banking with them for eight years by then and moved a fair amount of money through the accounts and was stunned with I got the denial. I appealed, and got denied a second time. I then wrote the CEO and made suggested they were going to lose my business. After two weeks without a response, I closed all of my accounts.
Wells Fargo: I decided to make them my third option as there are exactly zero branches in my region of the country.
TD Bank: Lots of branches in my region, and best of all, there was no issue opening a Secured Credit Card with a $5,000 limit. I anticipate they will unsecure the card in February and free up the "locked" savings account with my security deposit in it.
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Cap one told me no
I received my discharge for my Chapter 7 on the 17th and pre-applied for a Cap One card today to begin rebuilding. Prior to filing, I was a user on my wife's card and we had excellent, on time, 100% paid in full status with them for 6 mos prior to filing.
They told the both of us no, and that sucks because we were banking on getting another card based on our good history with them. I burned discover in the bankruptcy. We were planning on going to Navy Fed and applying for secured cards. I have money in the bank there to put down towards a deposit and Dec marks a year that I've been banking with them. (my wife has been there for years before we were married)
Please advise
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