Turned down for the first time

tesuhoha

Maybe this is on the wrong thread but I am a bit concerned. I have been paying off our debts by transferring them from 0% to 0% card. However, we applied for an American Express Amex card and we have been turned down. This is the first time we have ever been refused credit and I am now worried. Is this the beginning of the end? Does it mean we wont be accepted for any more 0% offers? We wanted that card for daily use. Not for wild spending but just our petrol and food shopping so we could get cashback at the end of the year. The letter we received from American Express said that they hadnt found anything derogatory but we dont have enough credit points for them. Although we are £17,000 in debt we never miss credit card payments and we are up to date with our mortgage. We were told by our mortgage adviser that we have an excellent credit rating. My husband does earn the required amount. As we recently applied for our bank charges to be refunded I am wondering is it possible that Barclays have damaged our credit rating in some way?

Ali-OK

On the cc forum, whilst people are being accepted for the card itself, they're being refused for the LOB BT.

Sounds like you may not fit into their target market, it's just not knowing whether you do until you apply.

Anyone tried getting quotes to see if they'd be accepted before applying? I'm thinking of giving this route a go next time.

S-hoppingMad

Hi - I'm new to this forum.
I too have had reason to think someone who is not happy with us - for whatever reason has the ability to "mark our card". Could this really happen? I can even imagine a scenario inwhich it could happen.
Scary huh?

Tr@cker

I think it might just be a case of too many cards, i wouldn't have said i was prime target as for a start im a tenant but i haven't applied for cards for a good while except the amex, which i got and i also got the 4.9% LOB.

tesuhoha

Thanks. I have got quite a few cards acquired only for the purpose of paying off debt. I think i'll have to cancel some of those. I can live without the cash card i suppose (sob) but I really dont want to lose the 0% deals. They make an incredible difference.

rkh001

Hi Tesuhoha

I too applied to Amex for LOB trnasfer. I needed £10,400 but they rang me tell me that I had been approved - wait for it... - £1,000. They also told me that the transfer had been done - they told me this twice and then retracted that statement. So, I promptly cancelled the card as £1k is no good to me. Since then I have been turned down by IF as well. So, I guess what happens is that your credit rating gets affected everytime a check is done.
Sorry to hear that this has now happened to you too. They said to me that they are "bieng responsible in their leding habits". Huh, the cheek of them!!!
Not much help I know but I am sure someone might have an answer for you.
Good luck.

GreyPilgrim

I've applied for Amex a a couple of times - once when my finances were abysmal (got turned down, and fully expected it), again for a company / corporate Amex card (and apparently I'm the only person in the company to have ever been turned down for a corporate card, so my finances must have been more abysmal than I thought!)

After years of getting the finances in order, paying off the debts, having credits accepted, transferreing balances I'm assuming my credit score is getting better. Egg accepted me, Mint accepted me. Applied again for Amex and got turned down.

I wouldn't let it worry you. Probably is a profile thing.

in*the*red_6

It could be the number of searches on your credit file. We were turned down for a 0% with Morgan Stanley (as far as I remember) and I was shocked as we'd never been turned down before either. It put me off applying for anything for quite some time and I ended up paying lots of interest on our Virgin card but when I found this forum I decided to apply for BA amex and we got accepted for that one no problem so don't let it put you off to much.

tesuhoha

Thanks I will try for another 0% card in june because I want to avoid interest. I've got nothing to lose because if I dont apply, I'm going to be worse off anyway. the thought of paying interest is scary after a couple of years of paying none at all. Tis the only reason i've managed to get the debt down from £26000+ to just above £17000.

Lois_Lane

I've been turned down for a few cards and sometimes, they've been 'invitations' that I've received as junk mail in the post - addressed to me!

I was turned down the first time I applied for Amex, but then a subsequent application was successful - nothing had changed, same job, same salary, same address etc...

In the meantime you've got a balance to transfer, and it's difficult to know whether to try for other BT cards, because you might get turned down again because you've had a recent knockback from Amex.

The oddest knockback I've had was from Alliance & Leicester - I applied for their premier account and they offered me their standard account, saying I'd been turned down because of my credit record, so I didn't go ahead with it.

Then out of the blue I had a letter from them querying the fact that I hadn't gone ahead with the account, so I called them and said I only applied to get the premier account and didn't want the standard account. They offered me the whole premier account package including overdraft!

Tesuhoha - if you can, keep your balance where it is for a month or so, then try applying again, you may be lucky next time.

LL

tesuhoha

Yes I might do that. The AE Amex card was also offered by junk mail sent in the post addressed to my OH. that makes it more annoying. Still the one good thing about this is that it is making me feel even more panicky about paying off the debt, so I will try even harder. Will try to get as much paid off as poss before the 0% runs out. Most of them seem by coincidence to run out in August. Thank you all for being so helpful.