Me thinking out loud!!

YorkshireBoy

no_cally_doe wrote: »

I have read that lenders can see whether or not you have been accepted or declined by other companies. By using the recent credit searches on your report and whether or not you have any recent new accounts added can confirm whether you have been successful or not in previous apps.

I don't believe they (can/do) analyse to that level of detail. I could be wrong though.

Plus, lenders names (for searches and accounts themselves) don't appear on the copy of your report that other lenders see.

And if a search appears but no account was set up, then it may be that the customer exercised their rights to cancel within 14 days rather than the lender refusing the account.

What I'm trying to say is there would have to be various assumptions made and lenders won't do that. They base their decisions on facts.

never-in-doubt

The 'norm' is no more than 6 searches in 6 months and no more than 10 per annum, however they are guidelines and should be treated as such. The Barclays checker thing is a waste of space in its entirety due to the fact they soft search Call Credit and perform a full credit check using Equifax when you actually proceed to apply. Therefore ignore whatever response Barclays give you on that - it means nothing until you applied and get the decision!

Regards to YB's comment about whether they can see if you were appected/declined, you're right that the CRA's do not know this and the lender cannot (DPA protected) notify them. Usually they will know because the credit file will change from showing only the search to the search and subsequent account being displayed.