Barclaycard Gold rejection - Why?

rainbow_carnage

I've just applied for a Barclaycard Gold, thinking I'd transfer the balance form my MBNA card. The application was instantly rejected, and I'm trying to figure out why. I've never had a rejection before.

I have a fairly decent credit history. Haven't missed a payment on anything in the last 8 years (everything is on direct debit). No bankruptcy, no serious debt. I'm not a homeowner, but we've lived in the same privately-rented flat for almost a decade.

I have 3 other credit cards:

MBNA - £4k (0% interest until next month)
Halifax - 0 balance
Amex - 0 balance

The only thing that makes me a risky borrower is that I'm self-employed. But my income of £23k is well-over the minimum for this card (£17.5k). I've been self-employed for 3 years. It has never prevented me from getting a credit card or anything else.

I don't have a spare £4k sitting around that I can use to pay off the MBNA card. I'd really like to transfer the balance. But now I'm worried about applying for a different card. What if they reject me, as well? Would the Barclaycard rejection affect it?

Any advice would be most appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

BugsyBrowne

Barclaycard credit check equifax..
So if i was you check there 30day free trial..
Why did you apply for the gold card why not platinum which is a better card..
And depends how much available credit you have on your other cards as well,

rainbow_carnage

I was only going to use this card for the balance transfer. The gold one has a 2.5% fee, the platinum 2.9%. It's not a big difference, but since I didn't need a huge limit or 0% on purchases, the gold seemed like a better deal.

The Amex has a £6k limit, the Halifax - £3,500. I pay off the Amex in full each month. Haven't used the Halifax one in a while. I should probably close it.

I'll check the Equifax report, just in case. Thanks.

rainbow_carnage

Checked the Equifax report. No errors that I can see. Nothing out of the ordinary. Three settled credit cards, a couple settled mobile accounts. Still not sure why the application was refused.

The problem sort of solved itself, though. I called to cancel the Halifax card. The guy offered 9 months at 0% on a transfer with a 3% fee. Not quite as good as the Barclaycard deal, but I'm hoping to have paid it off by the end of the year. It saves me having to apply for another card and risking another rejection.

BugsyBrowne

Mate you say you have amex,halifax,mbna what is your total amount of available credit on them 3 cards..
Because if everything else is ok with your credit report and you have a lot of available credit that will be your answer why you were turned down..

rainbow_carnage

Total credit across three cards: £14,500, of which £10,000 is available.

I'm going to close the MBNA card as soon as the transfer goes through. This will leave me with £9,500 in credit, of which £6,500 will be available.

Is this going to be a problem? I'll need a new spending card in July. I don't want to close the Amex card. Maybe I can ask them to reduce the limit? That doesn't really make sense, though, as I'll be using a larger percentage of my credit line.

Are you sure it has to do with the total amount of available credit, rather than the fact that I'm self-employed?

cifpower

Ring Barclaycard and ask them for a reason and if you can appeal their decision

BugsyBrowne

rainbow_carnage wrote: »

Total credit across three cards: £14,500, of which £10,000 is available.

I'm going to close the MBNA card as soon as the transfer goes through. This will leave me with £9,500 in credit, of which £6,500 will be available.

Is this going to be a problem? I'll need a new spending card in July. I don't want to close the Amex card. Maybe I can ask them to reduce the limit? That doesn't really make sense, though, as I'll be using a larger percentage of my credit line.

Are you sure it has to do with the total amount of available credit, rather than the fact that I'm self-employed?

You can wait for someone else to answer, but having £9500 credit available to you will defiantly not help your application..
Being self-employed would not be the problem as you have been given a mbna and amex card which are very strict lenders..

rainbow_carnage

Is there a formula to calculate what's an acceptable amount of credit? £9,500 doesn't seem like much. It's less than half of my annual income. I don't have a mortgage, student loans, or any other kind of debt.

If I cancel the Amex or ask them to reduce the credit line, my debt-to-credit ratio will skyrocket. Surely it's worse to be maxing out your credit lines than to have a greater amount of available credit?

BugsyBrowne

It is weird formula unfortunately no one on these forums will know for definite how lenders score applicants,But if you look through recent posts you will find that having to much available credit is just as negative as having maxed all your cards out..
Think you need to be in between..

Worthington

I was once 'invited' to apply for a store credit card when shopping, with the incentive of 10% discount on my first purchase. I thought why not and filled in the application. The assistant phoned through the details and returned to explain,in front of a number of other shoppers, that my application had been rejected. I asked why but they couldn't give a reason.

To cut a long storey short I later found out - because I had other credit cards with no outstanding balances that I didn't use, the store card provider decided it wasn't worth admin. costs to issue a card on the assumption I wouldn't use it on a regular basis. This could be Barclaycards' reason.