Credit Limits - looks like I shot myself in the foot.

mountainofdebt

Came home yesterday to a letter from Barclaycard stating that they were reducing my limit because they were a 'responsible' lender (which does eg the question are they admitting they've been irresponsible in the past, lol!)

Anyway wasn't really happy espeically as Barclaycard seems to be one of the very few ccs where you can make a BT without a fee so rang them up to complain.

What the guy I spoke to said was that they've been looking at people's limits v balances ratio with their other cards and decided I was maxed out as my balances are near to the limits - well they would be as I've been reducing the limits as the balances have been going down.....and hence Barclaycard's decision to reduce my limit.

What he suggested was to leave the limits as they were and only cancel the card when cleared - but as I pointed out if I have high limts then they could decide that my availiabilty to credit is too high .....obviously a catch 22 situation.

The_Boss

Interesting that they have contacted other lenders about your details.

I would never reduce the limit on an account, unless it was something like £8k down to £5k. Its useful to have these on your account when it is settled because it looks good to see you have managed high limits responsibly.

jonesMUFCforever

Nearly all banks share information via credit agencies like Experian etc.

mountainofdebt

once we've got to the summit of our mountain, there is no way would I want a high credit limit ever again, although I appreciate that getting a high limit on a 0% card will get us there quicker!

bargains83

There was something in the news last year that starting from January this year, Barclays, Egg, Abbey and I think another bank were going to start sharing credit commitment information between one another so that they could make better decisions about lending. I presume it could be this which is coming into effect.

I have a current account with Abbey and credit cards with Egg and Barclaycard so looking at this I guess I would be a sitting target to have limits slashed. Although this hasn't happened as of yet.

MABLE

mountainofdebt wrote:

Came home yesterday to a letter from Barclaycard stating that they were reducing my limit because they were a 'responsible' lender (which does eg the question are they admitting they've been irresponsible in the past, lol!)

Anyway wasn't really happy espeically as Barclaycard seems to be one of the very few ccs where you can make a BT without a fee so rang them up to complain.

What the guy I spoke to said was that they've been looking at people's limits v balances ratio with their other cards and decided I was maxed out as my balances are near to the limits - well they would be as I've been reducing the limits as the balances have been going down.....and hence Barclaycard's decision to reduce my limit.

What he suggested was to leave the limits as they were and only cancel the card when cleared - but as I pointed out if I have high limts then they could decide that my availiabilty to credit is too high .....obviously a catch 22 situation.

I had a limit of £8000 on my Platinum credit card and was up to it because I bought a new card and was able to transfer to that card at 2.9% life of balance transfer. I have paid off a great deal and is now down to £2600 and because of the transfer, I will not use the card and asked Barclaycard to reduce credit limit down to £3000. They agreed this. Also I have another BC but under the mastercard banner and a limit of £5500 available and have never used that card. I am now wandering if they may write to me and reduce my limits.
I have already taken this up with Barclays regarding them being a responsible lender and suggested perhaps in the past they had been anything but irresponsible. They felt my complaint was serious they have referred it to another dept within their organizaton. They said they will write to me Probably because they didn't have a standard letter explaining they have been anything but fool hardy in the past.
When I receive this personalised letter I will publish on this site.

Silkysox

We took the decision last year to rationalise our credit cards. I suddenly got panicky about the amount of potential credit we had and didn't need with the risk of fraud etc thought I would be reducing the risk by reducing our limits. We use the card for most monthly expenditure and then pay it all off every month. We still get 1% cashback on all expenditure with capitalone so stuck with them but reduced credit limit to £3k. This is now our only credit card, surprise surprise our circumstances have changed. I phoned them yesterday to request an increase of limit (only up to £5k) and was told that they do not do that anymore at customers request. We only do it proactively ourselves!! ie when they decide they write and let you know you can have an increase. Is this now normal practice? Maybe I've missed something here.

Kim141179

When I changed my credit card, they gave me a limit of £3500 whihc terrified me, so I phoned them up and requested it be reduced to £1500. The woman was stunned, at first she thought I wanted it increased ("of course we can increase it!") and could not understand why I wanted less credit. She reluctantly agreed after I said that if I even owed them £1500 I had gone wrong somewhere! (After trying to persuade me that it would adversely affect me if I wanted to increase it in the future!)

jackieb

We applied for an Egg card earlier this year as my husband needs one for work expenses. We pay the balance every month. I was very shocked when our limit was set at £12000. We didn't ask for this. We thought the limit would be for about 2k. We didn't think we'd even get the card when we applied as my husband had just started a new job. We told them this too. It's not like we lied and said he'd been there for x amount of years.

I'm not afraid that we'll use it just because we've got it. What I am scared of is it gets into the wrong hands, even though we are insured for all our cards.