Credit, love it or hate it, is something that’s necessary for many people to buy things. And I’m sure there are more than a few of you out there who have applied for credit online and been denied faster than you can say, "Hey! My credit rating is good! What gives?"

What gives is that you’ve been dealt the cold shoulder of a computer that deemed you unworthy of a credit line.

If you need credit for anything, my advice is simple: Apply over the phone or in person whenever the option presents itself. The rep you speak with on the phone has more of an interest in approving you compared to a non-human computer.

Lines of credit worth having for computer stuff

Apple Financial

Macs are frickin’ expensive. With Apple Financial/Juniper they have 0% for 12 months on any first (keyword there) purchase over $1,000 – which is unfortunately quite easy to rack up when buying Apple products.. (sheesh!) If you plan on buying Apple stuff, you’re going to need this unless you have really deep pockets.

Phone: 1-800-MY-APPLE

Dell Financial Services

Good for consumers and small-biz owners that specifically want to build credit. The nice part is that with DFS, they’ll allow you to finance just about anything – even for super-low amounts, and that’s an advantage.

Phone: Depends what type of customer you are. Info is here. If you’re just a regular consumer, call the main line 1-800-WWW-DELL.

Bill Me Later

Both NewEgg and TigerDirect accept this, as well as many other retailers. Granted, the interest rate sucks, but you get 90 days no-interest no-payment on any cart purchase over $250 in most instances. "Cart purchase" means that the items in the online shopping card meet or exceed $250. So if you buy a motherboard, CPU, monitor and lump it all into a single purchase that goes over $250, that’s financeable thru BML.

Note that you don’t have to apply for it. Just use it on purchase at checkout. However it is recommended you get yourself an account at the BML site to track spending better.

Fun and important “Did you know?” fact of the moment: The only true authorized source to get a free annual credit report under federal law is AnnualCreditReport.com.

Here’s where the funny (as in good funny) part comes in. The FTC themselves released two videos explaining why this is:

So yes, you can actually get a free credit report without any b.s. involved. You just have to know the right place to go to do it. And now you do.

And if you’re thinking, “Okay, smart guy.. how do I know that AnnualCreditReport.com isn’t yet another scam site?”

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt156.pdf

There’s your proof.

In addition, yes it’s true http://www.youtube.com/FTCVideos is run by the FTC:

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/03/freecredit.shtm