I started off with a pretty simple objective. I'm getting a pretty good sized tax refund this year, and I decided that I was going to put some of that money towards rebuilding my credit. Good idea, yes? I thought so.

The strategy that I had in mind was simple: Put $500 of my refund towards getting a secured credit card and use that for the next year or so to get the rating back up where it should be. To help me ensure that this strategy works for me I was going to give my bank instructions to withdraw $50 from my account every two weeks and put that towards the credit card. Given that I'm not likely to spend more than about a hundred dollars a month on the card because I believe that if I don't have the cash in hand to pay for it then I don't need it that badly this strategy pretty much ensures that I can get the credit bureaus liking me again, which is a good thing these days.

Now, all of my day to day banking is done through the Royal Bank of Canada. They've been particularly good to me over the years, even going so far as to extend me the occasional temporary overdraft when it has been necessary, which has saved my ass on a couple of occasions. We've had a good relationship over the years, so I decided that if I was going to do this then I would rather do it through them. Customer loyalty and all that.

Problem: the Royal Bank publishes absolutely no information on services to help their customers rebuild their credit. This isn't totally unexpected, as I have known for years that most banks want nothing to do with helping their customers in this manner. Their philosophy seems to be that if you don't already have perfect credit then they don't want to have anything to do with you, and as much as I understand their point of view on this issue it seems kind of counterproductive on the one hand, and kind of insulting on the other.

Okay, just for laughs let's have a look at some of the other major Canadian banks and see if they have some information on secured credit cards and credit rebuilding strategies. The CIBC doesn't. Neither does Citibank Canada, nor do they offer a search engine to give you the option of finding this out quickly. HSBC used to be the Hong Kong Bank of Canada. They have a new name but their site still doesn't show any information on secured credit cards. One element in their favor, however, is that you can be approved for a credit card balance as low as $500 on their standard MasterCard. The Laurentian Bank of Canada is another one of those banks that feels no need to provide a search engine on their site, however I will give them credit for having the best organized site so far. Alas, they don't publish what I'm looking for either. The National Bank of Canada is a MasterCard bank and I'm beginning to form the opinion that MasterCard banks especially want nothing to do with credit rebuilding, a theory which is seems to be corroborated by the fact that they don't have the information I'm after either. The Scotiabank has a good search engine, but they don't have what I'm after. TD Canada Trust has no search engine, but that's okay because they don't have the information I want either.

Before one of you decides to mention it, I will state for the record that I have no intention of ever dealing with the Bank of Montreal again due to a series of extraordinarily bad experiences with them some years ago. Maybe it was just the branch I was dealing with but I have never felt so loathsome and unappreciated as a customer as I did when I was dealing with them. However, just for shits and giggles I had a look at their site anyway. They don't have the information I need either.

The Internet is supposed to be this vast information resource, and it is when you know how to use it. Doing research on the Internet is nothing new to me, and I've gotten pretty good at it over the years, but you aren't going to find what isn't being published and none of the major banks are publishing information on secured credit cards. They probably don't want to give their customers ideas, or something. The local credit unions are just as lacking in this regard.

Of course, all this really means is that I'm going to have to break down and set aside some time to actually go into a bank branch and talk to a personal banking officer. Normally this wouldn't be so much of a problem, but we are in the last quarter of the league season in the bowling industry and I'm working six days a week because I have to provide a safety net for our new mechanic until I can get him completely up to speed. This means, of course, that time is at a premium for me. In fact, it can be safely said that I've not had time for much of anything. I haven't even had time to make phone calls and check phone messages.

For the record, there is one site out there that gives information about secured credit cards. The site in question is put up by a company called Home Trust, and they will extend to just about any customer a secured credit card upon receipt of a cash deposit on the amount of the credit limit required. There is a little information letter on the site that pretty much states that most banks are useless when it comes to credit rebuilding and that some banks even go so far as to offer secured cards which require deposits up to three times the amount of credit required. This means that for a $500 card I would have to deposit $1500. Can you boys and girls say, "Not fucking likely!" I thought you could.

I suppose that I really shouldn't be all that surprised, and I'm not. But I am disappointed. In an age where our society relies on the notion of credit worthiness to grant you just about any privilege under the sun, from Internet Access to using the bathroom, it would seem to be in the banks best interest to help those clients of theirs who have been decimated by circumstances outside their control get back on their feet and back in the credit agencies good books. But I guess that would be asking too much. God knows it's not the Canadian way.

The sick thing is, if I went south of the border and got a green card, within six months I could have an unsecured credit card in hand and all I would need is a valid checking account and a job. Of course, the American way being what it is, I'm perfectly free to sink or swim once I've got the thing, but it's available.

I must remember to write a letter to my bank, thanking them for their assistance in this matter. Or would that be vindictive and sarcastic?