If you have bad credit, you shouldn’t be worried about getting a loan – easy or not. It’s loans and credit cards that got you into bad credit in the first place. But if you really must get a loan, there are some alternatives. But none of them will be cheap and the interest charged by others may be outrageous.
Payday cash loans
Financial experts say that the easiest and fastest way to get a loan is via a payday cash loan. The way this works is that you make a check for whatever money you want, plus the fees charged by the payday loan company and date the check based on your payday. You get the cash immediately and there is no credit or background check. If you have a job and get a paycheck, you’d qualify.
However, these loans can come with extraordinarily high interest rates. In fact, you could end up with an APR (annual percentage rate) in the hundreds of points. For example, if you were to borrow $100 for two weeks, the payday loan company might charge you as much as $20. This is an APR of 426%.
Peer-to-peer loans
A second type of loan you could get even if you have bad credit is called a peer-to-peer loan. What makes this loan different is that you’re actually borrowing from another individual or group of individuals instead of a financial institution such as a bank. If you go online and search on the term peer-to-peer lending, you will get many pages of results including organizations such as Lending Club. In most cases, you will fill in just one application form and then get quotes from several different lenders. At least one of them may be willing to take a chance on you even if you do have bad credit. However, you probably will have to pay a fairly high interest rate because of the risk the lender is taking.
Loans for people with bad credit
There are also online companies that specialize in making loans to people with bad credit. Most of these companies loan money only up to a maximum of $1,000 to $5,000 and you can bet they charge relatively high interest rates.
Get a secured credit card
A secured credit card is not the same as a loan because you would be required to deposit money to secure it. While the amount you would need to deposit varies from card to card, it is usually in the range of $300-$500. The credit limit on a secured card usually parallels the security deposit. In other words, if you were to deposit $500, your limit would probably be $500. You can use a secured credit card anywhere you could use an unsecured one. The credit card companies will give you a lower and upper limit for your credit limit, which will typically be between $300 and $500. In some cases, your credit limit might be a percentage of your security deposit. So if you were to deposit $500, your limit might be 90% of that or $450.
A good way to rebuild credit
The benefit of a secured credit card is it’s a good way to start rebuilding bad credit. The credit card company will report to the credit bureaus how you’ve utilized your card. If you use it wisely and responsibly, this will have a positive effect on your credit score.