Any ideas?

MSV_3

We have doing the balance transfer system on credit cards for about 18 months. Now in the situation that we can't get new cards/credit limit 'cos the old cards remain on credit history even tho no money is owed on them. Contacted all of the companies who say they will remove, waited 3 months, still there. So on paper it looks as tho we have £000's of credit, which I suppose we do, but not available to use as balance transfers. What do other people do about this? Hou can we clear the credit history?

King_Of_Fools

You have to close the unused credit card accounts and then wait 3 months.

MSV_3

We have closed the accounts, cut up cards and sent them back as requested, and asked the card companies to delete the details from credit report, waited 3+ months but they have still not taken any action, so we now have a string of cards showing status as 'settled' but with thousands of £s of credit available. If we ask them to reduce the credit limits to a minimal amount we will look as tho we are a poor credit risk!

Although we have a good credit history we cannot now get any other cards as they decline the application and refer us to the various credit agencies - Experian etc.

Is there anything else we can do?

grumbler

'Settled' means 'closed'. Settled accounts stay on your files for 6 years. Corresponding credit limits are not regarded as available credit.

There could be many other reasons of rejection. See Credit Rating article.

YorkshireBoy

MSV wrote:

...so we now have a string of cards showing status as 'settled' but with thousands of £s of credit available.

There is nothing you can do about accounts you have closed/settled. The CRA's keep the details on file for 6 years after you have 'settled' the account.

The fact that the accounts are shown as 'settled' means that this credit IS NOT available to you. Regarding your 'credit-worthiness', if anything, it will show a manual underwriter that you have managed substantial levels of credit previously.

Experian produce a very useful booklet entitled "Your credit report explained", which you can view/download from the Experian website - you may wish to take a look at it.

MSV_3

Thanks for all of that - will look further then!