Consumer Advice > General AdviceApril 02, 2009

Buying a Computer With Bad Credit

I would like to buy a laptop computer for school but I do not have good credit. I have been denied credit with Dell and Hewlett Packard. I was wondering is it easier to get a credit card through Walmart or Office Depot? Do you have any suggestions?

By Onesummer

Answers

Read answers for this post below.

By
04/06/2009

I hate to suggest this, but if you are truely desperate for a computer, you could go to a rent to own store like Arron's or Rent-a-Center. You will end up paying ALOT more in the long run because you just have to pay $99 a month, but for either 12 months, 18 months or 24 months, depending on what you get.

If you're needing it for college, then you shouldn't fret too much because they always have librarys and computer labs that are available to students.

By
04/05/2009

Sign up with Freecycle. It is an on-line group that gives away unused and unwanted things for FREE to people in their neighborhood. I got a laptop through them...older, but works great.

By
04/05/2009

Do not charge! Save up about $300 then look online (SlickDeals.net, Uberi.com, wisebread.com/bestdeals) or office supply stores (Staples, Office Depot, Office Max) in the discount bin to buy a laptop.
Why only $300 dollars?
Because while you are saving your money use the time to start learning about Linux. Linux is free and so is all of the software that you will need and will run on less demanding hardware.
I bought a $300 dollar laptop on clearance from an office supply store. I downloaded and installed the very user friendly Linux Mint (linuxmint.com). Linux makes my $300 laptop run faster than my office desktop computer. I can even run Windows XP (you have to legally own the OS) on my laptop via a free software (virtualbox.org).
Save some money, do a some research on laptops and read up on Linux without adding to your debt.

Bob

I have a ton of information about Linux that I can send you if you need.

By
04/05/2009

For now, work on getting a better credit rating.. not adding more credit. Look for a used computer.

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