Now for those of us with a somewhat less than whiter than white credit history, the task of applying for, and being accepted for a credit card becomes more and more problematic. Whenever you are late with your repayment or worse still, if you miss a repayment alltogether, the alarm bells start ringing and you end up with black marks on your credit history. The more times you are late with a repayment or miss one repayment, the more black marks appear on your credit history. At some point, the credit card lenders will give you the evil eye and mark you down as a bad credit risk. This will result in your applications for credit being turned down or being offered only the higher rates of interest against your loan.

The only way to get back on track with your credit rating is to build up a history of paying all your bills, including your credit card bill, on time every month.

By doing this, you will be able to show the credit card companies and credit reference agencies that not only have you become a good repayer, but also that you can manage your debt in a timely and efficient manner. With time, you will be able to build up your credit rating and once again be eligible for standard credit cards and all the benefits that are associated with them. However, all this will occur sometime in the future, it does not get over your present predicament of needing a credit card now. This means that you will have to apply for an adverse credit card which is designed for people with a bad credit history. The main difference between a standard credit card and an adverse credit card is in the interest charged on the outstanding balance. Whereas a standard credit card has an interest rate of around 17% to 18 %, an adverse credit card has an interest rate of around 30 % along with lower credit limits than a standard credit card. Both of these features (if you can call them features) of adverse credit cards are put there to counter the perceived increased risk that adverse credit card users portray: people who have no previous credit history so they can’t prove their reliability, or people who have blotted their copybook by previously defaulting on credit card and other repayments

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