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Amazon. com Store Card Credit Builder

Advertiser Disclosure

Credit Card Insider is an independent, advertising supported website. Credit Card Insider receives compensation from some credit card issuers as advertisers. Advertiser relationships do not affect card ratings or our Editor’s Best Card Picks. Credit Card Insider has not reviewed all available credit card offers in the marketplace. Content is not provided or commissioned by any credit card issuers. Reasonable efforts are made to maintain accurate information, though all credit card information is presented without warranty. When you click on any ‘Apply Now’ button, the most up-to-date terms and conditions, rates, and fee information will be presented by the issuer. Credit Card Insider has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Credit Card Insider and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. A list of these issuers can be found on our Editorial Guidelines.

The Amazon. com Store Card Credit Builder could be a good way to rebuild your credit. Just make sure that your payment information is up to date and all your bills are always paid on time. You may want to take special care to make sure that your payments for this card go through, because Synchrony, the issuing bank, has a reputation for having some issues with payments.

Amazon. com Store Card Credit Builder

Highlights & Features

5% back at Amazon (Amazon Prime cardholders only)

INTRODUCTORY BONUS

Balance Transfers

A balance transfer is a way to move credit card debt from one credit card to another with the goal of saving money on interest.

Intro Balance Transfer APR	None
Regular Balance Transfer APR	None
Balance Transfer Fee	None

Penalty APR	None
Late Fee	Up to $38
Returned Payment Fee	See Terms
Additional Cards Annual Fee	None
Foreign Transaction Fee	None

Cash Advances

Borrowing cash on your credit card is a cash advance. Cash advances usually come with very high fees. Even worse, cash advances can signal to lenders that you’re being irresponsible with money.

Cash Advance APR: None Cash Advance Fee: None

ABOUT THE ISSUER

Synchrony Bank

Synchrony Bank has several card types depending on your needs.

Manage your Account & Pay your Bill

You can usually pay your bill online on your

Speak to Customer Service

Amazon. com Store Card Credit Builder

Highlights

5% cash back at Amazon for Amazon Prime members when declining special financing Special no interest financing deals from 6 months to 24 months for eligible purchases Equal Pay offers for eligible merchandise of $300 and more $10 Amazon gift card when approved Secured credit card: security deposit of at least $100 required Potential to upgrade to an unsecured card No annual fee

The Amazon. com Store Card Credit Builder is a secured credit card, designed to help you improve your credit scores. But other than that it’s just like the regular Amazon. com Store Card (Review).

You can’t apply for this Amazon credit card directly. Instead you must apply for the unsecured Amazon. com Store Card — and if you don’t qualify for that card, then Synchrony, the card issuer, will automatically consider you for the secured version.

If approved for the Amazon. com Store Card Credit Builder, you’ll need to provide a Security deposit of at least $100. Your credit limit will be equal to the amount you deposit. To make your security deposit you can visit https://www. amazon. com/creditbuilder.

Cardholders with Amazon Prime memberships will automatically be given the Amazon Prime Store Card Credit Builder card, which earns 5% cash back on Amazon purchases when special financing is declined. Other than that all the terms and features are the same.

You can also choose deferred interest financing offers for eligible purchases of $149 and more:

Promotional Balance Term Length

$149–$598.99	6 months
$599–$798.99	12 months
$799+	24 months

Take note that deferred financing offers are risky, because if you make a late payment or fail to pay off the full balance by the end of the term, You’ll immediately be charged interest on the starting balance for the entire length of the term. Learn more about deferred interest financing and how to use these offers safely.

And there are also Equal Pay financing offers, which allow you to pay over time at no interest as long as you pay off the financed balance in 12 equal payments. These are better than deferred interest offers because there’s no retroactive interest. You can learn more about the Equal Pay financing offers here.

You have a chance to upgrade from this secured card to the unsecured Amazon. com Store Card (or Prime Store Card). According to Amazon, some of the criteria used to determine upgrades are:

You make 7 consecutive on-time payments on your Amazon Credit Builder account and pay all other bills on time. Your credit file has no recent bankruptcy, foreclosure, repossession, or delinquent accounts. Your credit scores meet Synchrony Bank’s internal credit criteria.

© 2019 Credit Card Insider

ADVERTISER DISCLOSURE: Credit Card Insider is an independent, advertising supported website. Credit Card Insider receives compensation from some credit card issuers as advertisers. Advertiser relationships do not affect card ratings or our Best Card Picks. Credit Card Insider has not reviewed all available credit card offers in the marketplace. Content is not provided or commissioned by any credit card issuers. Reasonable efforts are made to maintain accurate information, though all credit card information is presented without warranty. When you click on any ‘Apply Now’ button, the most up-to-date terms and conditions, rates, and fee information will be presented by the issuer. Credit Card Insider has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Credit Card Insider and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers.

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DISCLAIMER: All information posted to this site was accurate at the time of its initial publication. Efforts have been made to keep the content up to date and accurate. However, Credit Card Insider does not make any guarantees about the accuracy or completeness of the information provided. For complete details of any products mentioned, visit bank or issuer website.

Amazon’s unique new credit card is a play for low-income Americans

Amazon needs more shoppers, so it’s giving people another way to pay.

This week, Amazon announced Amazon Credit Builder, a special credit card for US customers who need to build (or rebuild) their credit history. It’s available to US residents over 18 with a valid social security number or tax ID number, and can only be used for purchases on Amazon. com.

This particular card is what’s known as a “secured” card. That’s because to get one, the cardholder must pay a security deposit equivalent to their desired credit limit, with a minimum deposit of $100 and a maximum of $1,000. That money is held by Synchrony Bank, the financial firm partnering with Amazon on the card, and isn’t available for purchases—it is held by the bank, much like a deposit on a rental property. Secured cards account for less than 1% of US consumer credit, according to the Philadelphia Fed (pdf), which describes them as “a small and often misunderstood segment of the credit card market.”

Amazon advertises the card as a way to build credit, with the potential to upgrade to a regular Amazon Prime card in as little as seven months. The card’s benefits include no annual fee, a $20 Amazon gift card on opening, and 5% back on purchases for cardholders with an eligible Prime membership. (You could argue that to get the card’s full benefits, the annual fee is in fact the $119-a-year price of a Prime subscription.)

The disadvantages of the card include the security deposit, and only being able to use the card on Amazon. The card’s 28.24% interest rate is also high relative to the average for bank cards (18%) and other retail cards (26%), said Ted Rossman, industry analyst for CreditCards. com.

“I think it’s a really smart idea,” Rossman says. “A ton of people”—around 132 million, according to FICO—“fall into the subprime or no-credit categories.” The card is a win for the consumer, Rossman says, because Amazon sells so many things. And it’s a boon for Amazon “because as a retailer they win when they sell you stuff, but they’re also double-dipping because they’re getting in on the credit card financing too.”

Analysts have worried for some time that Amazon is running out of room to grow in the US. Researchers at investment firm Cowen estimated 63 million US households, or roughly half of families in the country, had a Prime account in the first quarter of 2019, up from 58 million a year earlier. Researchers at Morgan Stanley routinely warn Amazon could be limited by its inability to convert households earning less than $75,000 a year to Prime subscribers.

Amazon’s efforts to grow beyond the upper-middle-class population include a discounted Prime membership ($5.99 a month) for low-income Americans enrolled in certain government benefits programs. Amazon also offers a regular month-to-month Prime subscription for $12.99, and a monthly student membership for $6.49.

Rossman says the target audience for the secured credit card likely includes a lot of low-income consumers, but also young adults who don’t have a credit history and may have trouble getting approval for a traditional unsecured card. “It’s become difficult to get a credit card even in your mid-20s,” he says. “We’re seeing more and more of these alternative systems because there is this hole here for these young adults.”

The New Amazon’s Credit Builder Credit Card

So there is a new discussion being had amongst those savvy on credit cards and that’s whether or not the brand new Amazon Credit Builder Credit Card is worth signing up for. Now in general, yes credit cards are generally pretty good to sign up for because the average American has 3 credit cards, but to reach the perfect 850 it’s said that you need to have 21 lines of credit open (including loans).

But for the average American reading this, it’s better to know who this card is and isn’t for, what the features of this card is, and what some smarter alternatives might be depending on you and your individual situation.

In today’s article, Financer has delved deep into the legalize of the new Amazon Credit Builder Credit Card and determined what you as an American citizen would want to know the most before applying.

The Purpose of The Amazon Credit Card Builder

This card is considered to be targeted at two main groups of people. The first group is a person with no credit history, and the second group Amazon is primarily targeting is those who have bad credit.

And what this means, in a nutshell, is that Amazon has come out with their very own secured credit card. For this reason alone, this card is actually more accessible and probably more appropriate for the student who can’t tag along as an authorized user on their parent’s account for whatever reason, and are looking to begin a credit line history. If you’re unfamiliar what a secured credit card is, it’s basically a credit card you put a deposit on in order to prove your creditworthiness to the bureau. So if you were to put $200 on a credit line, your creditor would give you a $200 line of credit, and then if you were to never pay off your card, they’d be able to at the very least, take your deposit money to cover the cost.

The point of secured cards is usually meant to build your credit over several months and show lenders your history of spending and repayment in order to show your worthiness for establishing new and higher lines of unsecured credit.

The Caveat Making the Amazon Credit Builder Card a Good Idea for A lot of People

If you’re one of these people with bad credit because of mistakes in the past, or because you’re just entirely new to credit in general, the credit card from Amazon comes with a feature that most people would be pretty happy about. If you make a deposit of $1,000, you’ll have a credit line of $1,000 on your card; and after seven months of making payments on time, and paying off your card completely, Amazon will then review your credit card in order to see if you’re eligible for an upgrade to an unsecured card.

If your account has been found in particularly good standing, what will end up happening is Amazon will then refund you your deposit and then bump you up to the same version of their credit card with an unsecured credit line, potentially with a higher credit limit.

What Make’s Amazon Credit Builder Card Different than Most Secured Credit Cards?

Well, the biggest thing that has already stood out is that the card actually comes equipped with sign-on bonuses. When you put this head to head with a bank, the strategic spender could make a debate that it’s actually more advantageous to build their credit with Amazon than with your bank. Bank secured credit cards are generally widely available and typically are more generous with your credit line, however, it’s because you’re usually prequalified at any time for the banks secured cards that make the cards less desirable.

One strategy a lot of people neglect when establishing new lines of credit is Chase’s 5/24 rule (read more here). Meaning that you can’t get more than 5 lines of credit in 24 months. So because Amazon comes with sign up bonuses, to get the most value back in your pocket, it would make sense to establish credit with Amazon first, get their sign-on bonuses, then apply for Chase cards once you’ve built your credit because of their extremely generous sign-up bonuses, and once you hit the 5/24 rule, feel free to get a card through the bank you’re most comfortable with that usually doesn’t offer any incentive other than lower apr rates.

What are the Sign on Bonuses?

There are several bonuses that come equipped with this card, and while meager when compared to other Chase card’s sign-on bonuses, secured credit cards generally aren’t meant to have these bonuses in the first place.

The first thing that usually catches most people’s eye is the free $40 gift card. The next most striking feature would be 5% back on Amazon. com purchases if you have an Amazon Prime account. There is also no annual fee to your credit card.

What are the Downsides?

Now I’m hesitant to actually call these features true downsides, however, there are some things on this card you should definitely know because they could be different than what you expected.

First off is the APR on these cards, by default, the APR is a whopping 28.24%… Now to those who are new to credit this really isn’t much to actually worry about. You don’t ever pay interest as long as you pay off your card in full every single month. But for shoppers who use Amazon frequently, the card actually does come with special financing as followed:

6 months offer applies to purchases between $149 and $598.99; 12 months offer applies to purchases of $599 or more; and 24 months offer applies to select purchases of $799 or more.

If you’re just starting out with credit, our advice is don’t bother with financing and just pay off your card in full.

Heat from the Press

On June 12th, 2019, this Amazon Credit Builder Card seems to have gone live, and whether to negative press or internal issues, it now appears to be currently impossible to actually apply to the card. This may have been in response to an announcement made a day ago by Bernie Sanders and AOC claiming they will litigate Amazon’s new Credit Builder Card in particular because they were generally upset at how high the APR rate actually is.

This can’t be determined at this time whether or not the card will be available again, the page is still up on the website, however, the button to apply is now missing.