Advice Needed RE: Capital One & Balance Transfers

BeatrixKiddo

Hi,

Any help/advice would really be appreciated, as not sure what to do!

I took out a Marks & Spencer &More card in May to buy some furniture from them (approx. £1200's worth), and found out if you take out an &More card you get 18 months interest free on your furniture, plus all the &More points etc. I shop in M&S quite a lot, so thought this might be a good idea. Initially thought that I'd just pay off the furniture, but you know what it's like ended up putting another £800 on there through various purchases.

I've also got a Barclaycard & Egg Card which have a nil balance, but I like to keep them for emergencies. Thought I would keep the &More card for 18 months with just the 0% furniture on it and then close it. Unfortunately with the extra purchases etc. I'm now being charged their normal interest rate which is not very good - about 16% and only get about £10 worth of vouchers for every £1000 spent! I know I should have shopped around, but like I said, only meant to keep the 0% furniture on for the 18 months.

Anyway, cut a long story short - thought would do a balance transfer on £800 + my overdraft (£400) to a 0% card. Got a limit of £6000 on my &More card and ok limits on my other 2 so did not think this would be a problem.

Applied for Capital One's platinum card last week as it seems to be the best 0% card at the moment, and fancied having a decision in 1 minute. Filled in the details required and was surprised to see they didn't want half of the info you normally get asked for. When had to put in old address (as have lived in current house less than 3 years) the form didn't have all of the fields I needed, so put in as much as I could. Surprise, suprise came up with 'cannot give a decision so will contact you in next 10 days'. Rang up after a few days to ask if I could confirm my old address, as not sure it went on form properly. The lady I spoke to was really unhelpful and put me off Capital One for a start! She said they had all the required information they needed and would not take any more details or check they had the right ones for my application, and said they would write to me with a decision in the next 14 days (so much for an instant decision!). Got the letter yesterday addressed to Mr. BeatrixKiddo (!!) and said 'unfortunately we cannot offer you a card at the moment'. Thanks a lot Capital One. :mad:

Don't know what to do now. Should I:

Try and sort it out with capital one, but worry they will do another credit check for no reason.

Try with someone else doing a 0% deal and worry about another credit check but might get a card from them.

Forget doing a balance transfer and keep struggling to pay the &More card off having learned my lesson??

I don't know why they refused me when I've never had a problem before, and I'm worried if I apply for other cards if this happens again, it will wreck my credit rating (when it seemed to be ok before). Is it just Capital One being stupid or should I cancel my old barclaycard & egg card that I never use, in case it helps my chances of getting a new 0% card.

Sorry to be a pain, just worrying about what to do as thought I had it all sussed & now I'm really confused & skint

Thanks a lot!

BK

phil_thrifty

Hi,

How high are your credit limits on the Barclaycard & Egg? Sometimes you can get refused if your card limits add up to a high figure.

Regards,

Phil.

BeatrixKiddo

Hi Phil_Thrifty,

My Barclaycard limit is £2000 and Egg is £1500. I managed to clear them a while back and have always made the monthly payments etc. and never defaulted or anything. We are going to Florida next year & I really wanted to keep at least one of my other cards in case we run out of spending money & generally for emergencies.

Thanks for your help.

phil_thrifty

Your limits are low enough not to cause a problem I would have thought.
I have a Capital One card which a long term low balance xfer rate (4.9%). When I applied for this I had another card with a limit of £5K+ and a balance of around £4.5k. At the time I had a HSBC card for normal use which I would always clear the balance.

In your shoes I would ask Capital One if they could explain why they refused your application. Perhaps you could also look at your credit file on Experian or Equifax?

Regards,

Phil.

InsuranceLiability

'cannot give a decision so will contact you in next 10 days'
means you have been turned down this is unlikely to be because you filled your previous address in wrong. You can ask Capital One why, they dont have to tell you. Read other posts and articles about credit card acceptance