New Barclaycard Applications - BT warning

Bob_Terveuren

Hi all

Recently we picked up a 0% over 9 months Barclaycard with a credit limit of £5,600 which we intended to use as a slow stooze card.

First statement arrived last week and I paid the minimum.

Today a letter (dated same day as the statement!) arrived advising me that the credit limit was reduced to £560 (!!!!) (read Barclays are trying to reduce their exposure) In the meantime I had spent some more so I now have a HUGE credit limit of £1,000 (better than nothing I guess)

There is another thread here:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1361137&highlight=barclaycard

Which gives some more details (read about the guy who did the balance transfer and then got caught out - this could cost you money if you do a BT) but my suggestion would be to think hard before applying for a Barclaycard to stooze on - either they'll have reduced their opening credit limit to hardly anything or they'll slash it after the first statement.

Look elsewhere methinks

prozac_2

Happened to me also. A ten k limit went to 2k overnight the moment i paid it all off. ( i decided to cancel on my christmas holiday)

Weird thing is i have a perfect credit limit, never missed any payments. I suppose i must be high risk as my career is Retail related

Bob_Terveuren

prozac wrote: »

Happened to me also. A ten k limit went to 2k overnight the moment i paid it all off. ( i decided to cancel on my christmas holiday)

Weird thing is i have a perfect credit limit, never missed any payments. I suppose i must be high risk as my career is Retail related

Hi
Spoke to Barclaycard yesterday (nice Scotish guy so we discussed matters in pure 'Yahoodie, hoodie, aye, ye ken, u-huh' so I'll translate) as they rung up just to see how the new account was going. We chatted about the credit limit cuts and he said that virtually every new customer he was contacting had seen their initial credit limit cut by 80 - 90%.
He suggested contacting the Customer Services to say that the card had been obtained for a particular purpose and see if they would hike the limit back up - I'm not sure if I'll bother as perhaps an Ulster Bank application may be forthcoming instead.

We've a 100% credit score - never missed apayment for anything ever! and I've banked with Barclays for ten years - I guess they're just trying to reduce their exposure.