Help much appreciated please

mjbc310

Hi, I would be very grateful if someone could give me some advice on the following,

Basically while I was young and very foolish, I've managed to build up debts of around £14700 to date. Using my credit cards way too much and not paying back what I should have been doing.

I have two loans for which I'm comfortable with paying as follows:

Loan 1 - £5700 total 6.5% with 2 years and 10 months remaining
Loan 2 - £1920 total 8.8% with 2 years and 10 months

This is where my main problem lies, my two credit cards
Card 1 has £4265 with 0% till September
Card 2 has £2300 on 16.9% although interest is around £14.00 so not sure.

I've checked my credit file from experian and equifax and everything is green as much as I can see. Could anyone give me advice on how to pay these off and in what order.
A friend suggested moving the small balance to a 0% interest card however I've been declined online with several banks/building society's without a reason. I have one other credit card account which is not used and a current accound which is also not used. I'm at a loss as to why I am being refused on application?

Moving this balance to one of the loans has been a dead end as Nationwide quoted 18% APR for a loan top up, again I'm sure this has something in common with the failed credit card applications although I've never missed a payment with them or anyone else come to that.
I'm becoming very worried as I can only afford to battle one of these cards at a time, when the 0% runs out on the £4000 then I will no doubt struggle to meet the minimum payment.

Thanks for your time everyone.

epsilondraconis

A lot of people use the snowball calculator to help them work out which debt to attack first and how long it would take to pay it off.

http://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx

It looks like you should target 'Card 2' first as the APR is the highest at 16.9%.

Is there anything on your credit file that you think would lead to you being declined? It may be worth you checking your credit file (this can be done for free using CreditExpert (Experian) - make sure you cancel before the 1 month trial finishes; or by sending a £2 cheque / postal order requesting a copy from equifax and / or experian).

I guess the declines may simply be based on affordability. I wouldn't apply for any more just at the moment.

What credit cards do you currently have? You may be able to contact them and get a reduced rate if you are lucky.

Do you have anything you can sell - get extra work over the next couple of months?

You could always post your statement of affairs (SOA). The SOA is basically your income and outgoings. You'll get lots of people giving useful advice on how to reduce your outgoings.

http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

Edit: Added SOA link.

RAS

I have one other credit card account which is not used and a current accound which is also not used. I'm at a loss as to why I am being refused on application?

firstly having unused credit does not help your credit rating. Does your unused credit card off a low life balance transfer? If you ring to ask the creditor to close the unused card is there any way of transferring some of the 16.9% deal across?

If you make too many credit applications it affects your credit rating, so be careful. Does the unused bank account have an unused free OD?

mjbc310

Hi folks, thanks for your quick reply,

The unused credit is a very good point, my unused current account has a £3000 overdraft that is unused, my credit card also has £1750 of unused credit, I've checked my credit file from both agency's but everything is up to date and in the green, no previous searches even though I've applied for a 0% deal in the last week, which makes me think are they even checking my credit file?

A customer service person from Nationwide stated that they base the APR now on personal circumstances rather than checking credit reports, either way they did'nt get my business.

My unused credit card is a halifax one, the £2300 at 16.9% is a Mint card so both royal bank of scotland so they won't accept a balance transfer. The £4265 is from Virgin Money, which is my main big worry when the 0% runs out.

I will look into filling out the SOA as it looks like there are many helpful people here, apologies for not trying to make the thread clearer, basically keeping my credit file clean and paying back my debts in the most logical way is the biggest priority.