Card Tart help.

mazdabongo

Hi everyone. (1st post so sorry if it's in the wrong bit of site)
I was wondering if anyone could advise me as what I could do next to get my OTT credit cards down.
I have 1x Virgin credit card 0% expired this month
and have 1x Capital one credit card.
Both of these cards have now gone over their introductory rates and I am trying to apply for a balance transfer to another card. The top 3 recommended cards (on this site) have refused my application, and I'm just getting slightly worried as to why. I pay off (at least) the minimum each month by standing order/DD, I own my home with my partner and have no outstanding bills or loans etc. Could anyone suggest a next step forward for me as I will start to get out of my depth if the repayments keep at this rate. The 2 credit cards got destroyed a while back so I couldn't use them.
Thanks for any replies that come this way.

Bongo

stephane_2

What is the limit on each card + balance outstanding?
What is the APR on each card?
What is your annual income?
Which card have you applied so far & when?

mazdabongo

Thanks for replying Stephane.

Capital One Card.......

Credit Limit - 7200
Balance - 4545.68
interest rates - (annual)
purchase 9.120%
cash withdrawal 20.020%
balance transfer 9.120%
Virgin Credit Card

credit limit - 13,000
Balance -7981.94
interest rate - (monthly)
purchase 1.2916%
cash withdrawal 2.0751%
balance transfer 1.4352%

anual income 15846.
applyed for natwest,RBS and Barclay card
hope this helps....
B

fozmcfc

I'm afraid it's not good news.

It really is very clear why you are being rejected. You basically owe over £12,000 and earn £15,846.

Most lenders nowadays, will only lend upto 50% of your annual income if you have a very good credit rating, maybe some will stretch to 60% if you have an excellent rating. You are well above those levels already. Your available credit whether used or not is over 100% of your annual income as well, again very dangerously high.

I dread to think what would happen if you lost your some of your income.

In short you have a massive amount of debt for the salary you earn, I would say anything above £5,000 would be a lot on your income.

I think you are going to have to look at ways, to reduce your monthly outgoings and/or increase your monthly income. You're thinking well that's why I want a 0% card, but your situation requires a lot more than just a 0% card.

You would be better off posting a SOA (statement of affairs) over at the debt free wanabee boards. There are lots of people on those boards who can give advice/support about reducing outgoing and increasing incoming.

Failing that all you can do is ask your current card supplier, if they will do a 0% BT or a low rate life of balance transfer and shuffle some debt from one card to another.

Good luck.

mazdabongo

ok guys... not really the kind of thing I want to hear, but I get your point. Will do a few calls tomorrow and see what happens. Thanks for taking the time out to reply.

B

byebyedebt

Watch out! The Virgin card is notorious for raising the rates at the end of the intro period. 30+% is not unusual.

They will send you a letter, just to inform you that next month your rates are changing, the sort of letter that most ignore.

If they do, you can ring them up and opt out of the rise. You only have 30 days to do this. Once you opt out, it is normal for them to cancel the card, but don't have to pay the balance off, as long as you make the minimum payment, you can pay it off over years.

YorkshireBoy

Can't "partner" help out by taking on some of your debt?

Also, NatWest and RBS are one and the same as far as credit cards are concerned (RBS being the parent company), so the 2nd application was a complete waste of time I'm afraid. Before making future applications check out who owns who here...http://www.stoozing.com/cards.php

byebyedebt

Barclaycard have quite strict criteria generally, but their website is quite useful because it has a section that tells you what sort of person is likely to get accepted.

Fro. Depending on what type of card, you can look online and it will tell you some of the criteria. For example it may tell you that the card is only suitable for.

For example the platinum credit card with balance transfer says it is suitable for applicants who;

Have a regular income of more than £20,000 pa
Excluding a mortgage, your debt on credit cards or store cards is less than 10% of your income.

twist-and-shout

I cant see you being offered another credit card anytime soon with your debt/income level currently.
It may be worth phoning Virgin to see if they can offer you a lower promotional rate on a balance transfer then transfer your other credit card over and close it down. This will save you money espically as Virgin are changing there payment allocation from 1st september meaning you WILL pay off the higher rates of interest first.

If you are sucessful in doing this then the key will be to pay as much off the Vigin card as quickly as you can.

YorkshireBoy

twist-and-shout wrote: »

It may be worth phoning Virgin to see if they can offer you a lower promotional rate on a balance transfer then transfer your other credit card over and close it down.

I'd consider playing it a different way...

Shift some Virgin debt to Capital One first, being as it's only 9% APR...then call Virgin. That way the OP will get more of the debt on a Virgin promotional rate (£7K vs £4.5K) if they play ball.

And if they don't, then at least an extra £2.5K is on the lower 9% rate with Capital One.

twist-and-shout

You make a very good point yorkshireboy. That is something the OP should consider regardless if virgin will offer a promotional rate or not.

Another way would be of course if Virgin do offer a promotional rate would be to transfer all the capital one balance over to virgin then after the 1st sept transfer back to Capital one whatever is left accruing interest on the Virgin card. Complicated but worth it if things are tight budget wise.

Note to OP always allocate any overpayments to the higher interest charging cards.