An excellent credit card for a bad credit consumer, the Bank of America secured credit card offers competitive interest rate on purchases and balance transfers as well as several other benefits, that make it quite competitive with other secured credit cards. I like its free Total Security Protection package which provides greater defense against theft, loss, or unauthorized use of your Bank of America secured Visa. Among main security features are zero liability if the card is lost and stolen with prompt reimbursement of your account, fraud monitoring to detect suspicious patterns and photo security option that puts your picture on the card front.

The basics of this secured Visa are quite similar to other similar offers, but one advantage that stands out right away is a higher credit limit. This is a credit card for those with bad credit or no credit history at all. You can deposit as little as $300 or as much as $10,000 into a Bank of America security deposit account, and your credit line directly reflects the amount of deposit. You can now charge your card up to the amount you have in this security deposit account. You still must pay at least the minimum payment before the due date each month. The security deposit is just that – a security deposit and does not cover minimum payments. Bank of America may extend your an unsecured credit card offer, likely after a year of timely payments on its secured card.

Here are key interest rates of Bank of America secured credit card:
- variable Annual Percentage Rate (APR) on purchases and balance transfers is 14.24%
- variable APR for all other transactions including but no limited to direct deposits, check cash advances, ATM cash advances, bank cash advances is 19.24%
- default APR can go up to 29.99% for all purchase, balance transfer and cash advance balances if late or over the limit

I underlined “balances” because you must understand that default APR is not a variable rate. If you don’t make a minimum payment on time or exceed the credit limit twice within 12 consecutive months, Bank of America may increase each and every variable APR up to the default APR, applying this default APR to all new and outstanding balances with lower (either 14.24% or 19.24%) variable APRs. Something tells me that Bank of America will happily oblige and you will get hit so badly by the rate increase, you will regret you ever got this secured Visa card. But then again, every secured credit card has those provisions, so watch out.

Other features are pretty much agreeing with the current industry standards:
- grace period for repayment of balance for purchases is at least 20 days from the statement Closing Date as long as you fully paid your New Balance Total from the previous statement by its Payment Due Date
- annual fee is $29
- late fee is $35
- over the limit fee is $35
- transaction fee for the purchase of wire transfers from a non-financial institution is 5% of each such transaction and minimum $25
- transactions made in a foreign currency and, as of June 1, 2009, any transaction made in U.S. Dollars that is processed outside the United States is 3% of the U.S. Dollar amount of each such transaction, in addition to any other applicable fee

Again, this is quite important to understand – not only you pay these 3% if you buy something on your trip to with this Bank of America secured credit card – but every transaction that is processed outside the U.S. is subject to the 3% fee. So if you decide to buy something from Canadian pharmacy or book European vacations, make sure you know where such a transaction is processed.

There are more fees as one should expect from a secured Visa, as issuers are now trying to squeeze every nickel and dime:
- fees for standard balance transfer, direct deposits and check cash advances are 4% of each such transaction, with minimum of $10 and maximum of $90
- ATM cash advances and bank cash advances come with 4% fee of each such transaction with minimum of$5 and no maximum
- cash equivalent transactions fee is 5% of each such transaction with minimum of $25 and no maximum
- overdraft protection cash advance fee if enrolled is 4% of each such transaction with minimum of $5 and no maximum

The other very important thing to understand is that you can’t simply withdraw or transfer money from the deposit account, which was set up for your Bank of America secured credit card. It will be considered a default with all the unpleasant consequences. Unless you pay off your outstanding balance and close this Visa account, you can’t touch your deposit without severe ramifications. Apply here.

Other good choices include the Rushcard, Silver, and Vision prepaid credit cards.