Will this improve my credit score?

Gooter_2

I opened an account online with Littlewoods around 6 months ago. They gave me a credit limit of £200. They did not do a search on my credit report, I just filled in the application and instantly the account was opened. I took a look around the site but in the end decided not to buy anything.

I just took a look at my credit report and in my list of credit accounts the littlewoods account shows up. As I havent used it the account looks perfectly managed (all 0's) and the £200 limit is included in my total available credit amount, its also making the percentage of used credit look healthier too. It is easy to open accounts like this with various companies online.

If I open some more accounts will they improve my score?

If I do not use any of the accounts, each one will increase my available credit, reduce the percentage of credit used and appear as perfectly managed accounts. Will this make me look good or will too many accounts (even if perfect) be seen as a negative?

SimbaSimon

Gooter wrote: »

I opened an account online with Littlewoods around 6 months ago. They gave me a credit limit of £200. They did not do a search on my credit report, I just filled in the application and instantly the account was opened. I took a look around the site but in the end decided not to buy anything.

I just took a look at my credit report and in my list of credit accounts the littlewoods account shows up. As I havent used it the account looks perfectly managed (all 0's) and the £200 limit is included in my total available credit amount, its also making the percentage of used credit look healthier too. It is easy to open accounts like this with various companies online.

If I open some more accounts will they improve my score?

If I do not use any of the accounts, each one will increase my available credit, reduce the percentage of credit used and appear as perfectly managed accounts. Will this make me look good or will too many accounts (even if perfect) be seen as a negative?

It depends how many other accounts you already have open and what credit limits you already have. If you don't have much credit already then I can see it helping, however if you try and open too many accounts in a short space of time it may look like your desperate for credit.

So my advice would be if you already have credit elsewhere, like a credit card or phone bill then not to bother opening another account, especially if you have no intentions to actually use the credit. If you don't have any other credit then you could open an account, but might be better to opt for a credit card or similar because these are actually useful and you may need to use in an emergency or similar.

sicker

There is also the possibility that the 'amount of credit available' could have a negatve effect.

lisyloo

There is also the possibility that the 'amount of credit available' could have a negatve effect.

Well it does depend on income, but a £200 a go, I doubt it.
People with too much credit are those with £50K or £100K from stoozing, not a couple of very small store cards.

Personally I think this is a waste of time.
Trying to manipulate and second guess the criteria is impossible.
You could end up doing more harm than good and there is certianly and id theft/fraud risk every time you give your details out.
It takes years to build credit history, so personally I would not try to deliberately manipulate it. You could make things worse according to some lenders criteria which you simple don't know.
Just make sure you make payments on time and open the minimum number of accounts you need but enough backup for emergencies.
Every account is a risk so having unnecessary ones is silly in my view.
Nothing wrong with keeping lines of credit open for emergencies but to open multiple accounts to try to imporve you score on the basis of speculation is a waste of time and risky IMO.