Refused credit with 900+ rating?

Nick666

Hi -

I've been trying to figure out why my wife and I are being refused credit - I have a score of 920 and she has 985 or so with Experian, and last time I checked our scores with the other two big ones were similar, and there's no bad credit against either of us. We have both now tried a handful of credit cards (for balance transfer purposes, from lenders varying from Barclaycard to Virgin, Santander to RBS) and had straight refusals - my wife even recently got turned down for a contract mobile phone by O2!

None of the card companies have been very helpful, simply suggesting I can get a statutory credit report (I've gone over the whole thing with a finetooth comb and found nothing wrong), and if I have any further evidence to support my application I send that, but I want to know why anyone would be saying no in the first place? If it's the economy, and they don't want to lend to even good credit customers, why is anyone advertising cards at all?

Is there anyone else I can go to for advice or to find out why we're seemingly untouchable, or any way I can require the lenders to say why we're being refused?

Any help or interesting anecdotes welcome!

DizzleUK

How many searches is a handful? Too many in a short space of time will have an adverse effect.

Also, the scores you paid good money for with Experian are completely useless. Each lender uses their own scoring methods, which vary greatly. The £5.95 you paid was a bigger waste of money than buying a pack of cigs and handing them to the head of an anti-smoking campaign group.

Oh, and I take it you are on the electoral role at your current address? And your total credit commitments are less than 50% of your annual income?

JohalaReewi

and last time I checked our scores with the other two big ones were similar

They didn't just pay Experian for useless scores

redpete

As far as I know the credit rating agency scores do not take into account income - the lender will assess this along with other debts and/or lines of credit to assess whether you can afford repayments or are a high risk.

Nick666

Yea, I was reasonably aware that the scores were a bit useless to say the least, but just wanted all the possible information I could get to find out what was going on! We are indeed on the electoral roll and the debts are <50% - interesting to know that bit though, is that a fairly common decision factor, 50%? Thanks for the advice though you 3

Tixy

50% is a good guideline in current times. But its all your credit limits rather than just your debts that are relevant to working out the percentage. Plus you need to thik if the new card (or whatever) would then take you above the 50%.

Have you any old unused accounts showing on your reports that haven't actually been properly closed down?

On the opposite side of things - do you actually have any credit cards at all at the moment? If you have none its hard for lenders to judge whether you will pay them back responsibly.

Nick666

Thanks.

I do have a large credit card limit - over £10k, but there's only about 1k on it at the moment, which I'd like to swap to another 0% card. So it sounds like what you're saying is that it may be the credit card LIMIT of >10k that they're maybe looking at? Never figured anyone'd be interested, esp if it wasn't being used!

vaporate

Nick666 wrote: »

Thanks.

I do have a large credit card limit - over £10k, but there's only about 1k on it at the moment, which I'd like to swap to another 0% card. So it sounds like what you're saying is that it may be the credit card LIMIT of >10k that they're maybe looking at? Never figured anyone'd be interested, esp if it wasn't being used![/QUOTE]


Well the fact that you have a insane large limit puts creditors off as you can easily run it up.

Tixy

Is the limit all on one card?
If you have a card with no debt on it at all you can always ask if they will do a promo deal for you, many will to retain your custom, if they won't then close it.

housebuyer_abc

vaporate wrote: »

Well the fact that you have a insane large limit puts creditors off as you can easily run it up.

I wouldn't say that 10K is an insane limit, pretty standard in the experiences I've seen - even recent grads can get 10K limits on cards

d3mon4ngel

housebuyer_abc wrote: »

I wouldn't say that 10K is an insane limit, pretty standard in the experiences I've seen - even recent grads can get 10K limits on cards

My current credit card limit is the highest it has ever been at £700. £10k seems a ridiculously high limit to me lol