V A N Q U I S

ferrit44

Vanquis Gold service is basically an excuse to hike your APR up? I recently moved over due to the increased credit limit, and have just worked out the APR to be around 80%? (I may have calculated it wrong mind)

Anyone else notice this? I can't recall ever getting notification of the increased interest rates when they upped my limit.

Not that it's an issue, I don't leave a standing balance anyway, but still. 80% is a bit steep

Atom

Deleted_User wrote: »

Direct Debits are the devil. I pay all my bills manually.

Why ? It's a good way to make sure you do not miss payments - it is your responsibility to make sure there are funds in the account with DD's.

I think if you pay manually at some point in time you may forget 1 or 2 end up late etc and your report will be trashed for a while.

UnderPressure

ferrit44 wrote: »

Vanquis Gold service is basically an excuse to hike your APR up? I recently moved over due to the increased credit limit, and have just worked out the APR to be around 80%? (I may have calculated it wrong mind)

Anyone else notice this? I can't recall ever getting notification of the increased interest rates when they upped my limit.

Not that it's an issue, I don't leave a standing balance anyway, but still. 80% is a bit steep

I have a theory with this, I think when you get a gold upgrade along with the APR hike this is your cue to apply for mainstream lending, Vanquis get data about you from CRA's every month so I think when it gets to the stage they "know" you should get mainstream lending you no longer fall into their business model so the hike in APR is a gentle push to get rid of you basically! This is my theory anyhow


@ASL

crikey where to start with you, lets get the stuff out of the way you wont like shall we........................................

Reading your posts I honestly dont think you have learnt anything from your bankruptcy, for someone who has been through the wringer of bankruptcy I find your posts quite blazze and if I am being honest a little starnge. Here are my thoughts:

1/ Provident my oh my what are you doing? You really should not be doing any kind of business with these companies in any respect whether it be a loan vouchers or whatever, their APR's are sky high and for the tiny amount of money they lend its plain ridiculous. Provident and other door to door lenders as far as I am aware DO NOT and NEVER HAVE reported to CRA's so as all you are doing is lending tiny amounts of money from what effectively is a loan shark and paying through the nose for the privelage.

2/ The Vanquis card, first off you sound almost excited to have got this, I can understand this completely I have one had it for 9 months now and te feeling you get fo being "trusted" again when you are accepted is brilliant however you worry me, talking about spending your full credit limit and trying to figure out min monthly payments, cancelling direct debits, waffling on about cutting it up if they dont increse your credit limit effectively throwing your toys from the pram because they wont let you run up loads of debt probably on stuff you dont need anyhow, this really is not the way to act with this card. There is no set algorithm with Vanquid anymore to get a credit limit increase, they do advise on their sites 4 months of good conduct but believe me even with excellent conduct you can wait longer, I had a £250 starting limit and waited 8 months for it to be increased to £1000, other people have waited 4 months to only have a £250 increase others have waited 12 months there is no way of telling you just need to play the game and see what happens. BE WARNED though as has been said many many times on this thread dont spend what you cannot afford to pay off in fill is by far the best way to use this card. You have only just received your first statement and already you are moaning about increasing your credit limit!

3/ Post Bankruptcy Cleanup you have been given some fantastic advise from some long standing very knowledgable members and a link to a thread that has been proven to work and clean your CRA files up as quickly as possible, as long as you have outstanding defaults you are always going to struggle getting credit, to then turn around and say "I can be bothered" is ridiculous! This was probably the attitude that seen you applying for bankruptcy in the first place "cant be bothered" are you for real? If you cant be bothered who else is going to be? You go on about a solicitor can you afford one? Why pay for something you can easily do yourself if you stop being so lazy and not bothered???

From your posts the best advise I could give you would be to pay your Provident loans off and tell them where to go, cut up your Vanquis card and never have any kind of credit ever again in your life or at least until you can be bothered...........................

We see lots and lots of members such as yourself give it 2 years and you will probably be on the bankruptcy forum with a different username seeking advise about a second bankruptcy, I hope not I really do but you need to calm down a bit and smell the coffee

All the best

ASL

UnderPressure wrote: »

I have a theory with this, I think when you get a gold upgrade along with the APR hike this is your cue to apply for mainstream lending, Vanquis get data about you from CRA's every month so I think when it gets to the stage they "know" you should get mainstream lending you no longer fall into their business model so the hike in APR is a gentle push to get rid of you basically! This is my theory anyhow


@ASL

crikey where to start with you, lets get the stuff out of the way you wont like shall we........................................

Reading your posts I honestly dont think you have learnt anything from your bankruptcy, for someone who has been through the wringer of bankruptcy I find your posts quite blazze and if I am being honest a little starnge. Here are my thoughts:

1/ Provident my oh my what are you doing? You really should not be doing any kind of business with these companies in any respect whether it be a loan vouchers or whatever, their APR's are sky high and for the tiny amount of money they lend its plain ridiculous. Provident and other door to door lenders as far as I am aware DO NOT and NEVER HAVE reported to CRA's so as all you are doing is lending tiny amounts of money from what effectively is a loan shark and paying through the nose for the privelage.

2/ The Vanquis card, first off you sound almost excited to have got this, I can understand this completely I have one had it for 9 months now and te feeling you get fo being "trusted" again when you are accepted is brilliant however you worry me, talking about spending your full credit limit and trying to figure out min monthly payments, cancelling direct debits, waffling on about cutting it up if they dont increse your credit limit effectively throwing your toys from the pram because they wont let you run up loads of debt probably on stuff you dont need anyhow, this really is not the way to act with this card. There is no set algorithm with Vanquid anymore to get a credit limit increase, they do advise on their sites 4 months of good conduct but believe me even with excellent conduct you can wait longer, I had a £250 starting limit and waited 8 months for it to be increased to £1000, other people have waited 4 months to only have a £250 increase others have waited 12 months there is no way of telling you just need to play the game and see what happens. BE WARNED though as has been said many many times on this thread dont spend what you cannot afford to pay off in fill is by far the best way to use this card. You have only just received your first statement and already you are moaning about increasing your credit limit!

3/ Post Bankruptcy Cleanup you have been given some fantastic advise from some long standing very knowledgable members and a link to a thread that has been proven to work and clean your CRA files up as quickly as possible, as long as you have outstanding defaults you are always going to struggle getting credit, to then turn around and say "I can be bothered" is ridiculous! This was probably the attitude that seen you applying for bankruptcy in the first place "cant be bothered" are you for real? If you cant be bothered who else is going to be? You go on about a solicitor can you afford one? Why pay for something you can easily do yourself if you stop being so lazy and not bothered???

From your posts the best advise I could give you would be to pay your Provident loans off and tell them where to go, cut up your Vanquis card and never have any kind of credit ever again in your life or at least until you can be bothered...........................

We see lots and lots of members such as yourself give it 2 years and you will probably be on the bankruptcy forum with a different username seeking advise about a second bankruptcy, I hope not I really do but you need to calm down a bit and smell the coffee

All the best

Thanks for your reply to me and the kick up the @ss. I needed it.

1) The reason I went with a provi loan last year was to try and start to rebuild my credit file to a positive one, they said it would help. Well thats what the agent told me, although that agent "disapeared" off the scene shortly afterwards.

2) I was excited sure when I was accepted, it sure beat the sorry to inform you letter. The credit limit I have (£250) is what I spend on average in a month on living expenses. Which I will be paying in full each month, on the statement date. It I believe takes a few days or more to reach vanquis. So in those few days whilst its reaching vanquis, the available could be ten ot twenty quid. Why don't I use cash, because I want to leave the money I have in my bank account. Reason 1) they say make the most of your available credit limit to be considered for a increase and 2) Lets say one month I am not paid. There will be money available in the bank for a couple of months bills etc.
Now the minimum payment. I don't recall asking about how much the minimum is. However if I reset up the direct debit, that can be set up to pay just the minimum, and I can pay the rest of the full ammount online. A good idea I suppose, just incase I was in hospital or something on the due date. It would save me a late payment fee.

You talk about can't be bothered. Believe me, I was bothered post BR, I ended up with no option due to losing my job. (no I was not fired). Ref the comment, you say about me not being bothered to clean up my file. Thats where I thank you for the kick up the @ss. Lots of things happened, such things like losing a loved one who died in my arms. Suppose I have been depressed. I know others are in the same situation and I need to kick myself out of it. Only I can do that, but your friendly kick has got me thinking. Ref cutting the card up. By that I meant if it will always stay at £250. And not increase. It may of well sit in a draw or be cut up. Because I'll still get the green 000000s.

I account for every penny I spend now. I keep spreadsheets and everything to the penny goes onto it. Plus spreadsheets for utility bills and my vanquis. I appreciate what everyones said here, there is such a wealth of good information.

I certainly don't intend buying things I don't need or cannot afford to pay in full each month. Even if my limit increased to £3k you wouldn't find me booking cruises or jetting off on holidays or buying the latest gadget.

So apologies for "waffling on" I put it down to and I'm being honest a lonely miserable holiday weekend alone. I went through a can't be @ssed weekend and I was angry with barclays for not updating the files to satisfied" even though they have had a couple of years to do it.

Well the weekends over. Just canceled my equifax. They tried to give me a half price deal for three months, but I didn't accept. My experian file will be with me in a week. Then I can start the clean up of my CRA files. So its all forward now. btw (lol) I wasn't stupid over the weekend to blow whats in the bank to cover my first statement in full. Thanks again for the kick. I appreciate it. I needed it. :beer:

izools

RE: Provident.

They most certainly do report to credit reference agencies. They started doing this in 2008. They report to Experian and Call Credit but not Equifax. My provident loan appears on my EX & CC credit files.

I took it out for the same reason as ASL, to build credit. It certainly helped.

ASL - taking out a Provident loan won't help nearly as much as doing the post bankruptcy clean up. It is a bit of a process to follow, but no matter what you do, your credit will be FUBAR until you either wait 6+ years or follow the process.

It may take longer than six years if you don't do the post bankruptcy clean up as the information is likely to be wrong - one of my defaults was actually dated after discharge meaning I would have had to wait over seven years for the adverse data to go. The process has been detailed for a very good reason.

When I followed the process, I found actually that many of my defaults were removed entirely not just marked as satisfied with the correct dates. It is well worth doing. Pace yourself, do a little each time you have the energy, and once you've finished following the process to the letter you should be able to get a full bank account as long as you don't apply for any credit during the process and have less than one or two searches in the preceeding six months.

[Deleted User]

Atom wrote: »

Why ? It's a good way to make sure you do not miss payments - it is your responsibility to make sure there are funds in the account with DD's.

I think if you pay manually at some point in time you may forget 1 or 2 end up late etc and your report will be trashed for a while.

It's all to easy to forget about what is and isn't coming out of your bank account with Direct Debits.

It's all too easy to forget what is in your bank account and then have a Direct Debit come out when you haven't got enough to cover it. Resulting in getting stuck in your bank's charge loop.

izools

Deleted_User wrote: »

It's all to easy to forget about what is and isn't coming out of your bank account with Direct Debits.

It's all too easy to forget what is in your bank account and then have a Direct Debit come out when you haven't got enough to cover it. Resulting in getting stuck in your bank's charge loop.

I pay my water, energy, council tax, mobile phone, virgin media, contents insurance, and loan via Direct Debit. Never incurred a penny charges. Didn't even incur a penny in charges leading up to Bankruptcy trying to juggle £47K loans / credit cards on a £15K salary.

It's all about being aware of, and staying aware of your income and expenditure.

Have a DD coming up that you know you can't afford? Cancel it. Call the company to pay by debit card when you have the readies and set up the DD again whilst on the phone paying.

There's no reason anyone would ever be charged except for not being vigilant enough about their income and expenditure when it comes to Current Accounts. You are in full control of what goes in and comes out of it be it by Standing Order, Direct Debit, or Card Mandate.

Atom

Deleted_User wrote: »

It's all to easy to forget about what is and isn't coming out of your bank account with Direct Debits.

It's all too easy to forget what is in your bank account and then have a Direct Debit come out when you haven't got enough to cover it. Resulting in getting stuck in your bank's charge loop.

I disagree - thats what online banking is for, you can check your balances etc in a few clicks - if you setup a DD you can always get them to come out on a certain time of the month to tie in with your wages going in etc

If you forget what money you have what chance you got lol never mind remembering what day your DD's come out ey

Oh well im always aware of whats in my bank and always keep a certain amount to cover anything coming out.

P.S. i just got offered an increase on my aqua to 1200 today :T rejected it, i don't need that amount

Kyresa

Deleted_User wrote: »

It's all to easy to forget about what is and isn't coming out of your bank account with Direct Debits.

It's all too easy to forget what is in your bank account and then have a Direct Debit come out when you haven't got enough to cover it. Resulting in getting stuck in your bank's charge loop.

I set up two bank accounts, one which I pay bills out of and one for my own expenditure.

When I get paid, the amount I need to pay my bills goes in one account, everything left goes into my "you can spend this money" account.

Simples :beer:

kilasuit

and with HSBC online banking i can see what DD's are set to take out the following day which is not only useful but can save many the hassle of fee's fee's fee's.

I tend to work a hell of a lot and still manage to check my account at least once a day (thou on average its 5-10 times if not more expecially the day before payday)

I believe Barclays had/have this facility but i disliked barclays as a bank (not that i really gave them much chance in all honesty)