Barclaycard and Credit Expert suspending card and giving no explanation

BugsyBrowne

savagej wrote: »

Starfire, Barclaycard search both Equifax and Experian when applying for a credit card and have done so for more than a year now.

Is that a true fact savagej or are you going by 1 or 2 members from the forum who have stumbled over a search on experian from barclaycard.
I do know they search experian for current accounts and loans but think you will find,this is a rough guess I would say 80-90% of the time I would say their searches are done on equifax.
I might be wrong which I most probably am wrong but that is my theory.

savagej

They did when I applied, it was an on-line app and both searches appeared simultaneously and when I asked for a limit increase they did a soft search with Equifax only.

lisyloo

JainaM wrote: »

To clear your statement up, I'm not having a pop at Experian at all. I'm allowed to express my opinion.

Yes, and Barcalycard are allowed to conduct their business on the basis of their opinion (or one they buy in).

The account has a very good credit rating

There is no such thing.
Only a lenders opinion.

and doesn't fail in anyway of fraud, misuse or even going over the limit.

That's not necessarily what they are looking at.
As an exmaple they could be looking at % of availble credit that's used to indicate which customers might get into trouble in the future.

Barclaycard have no answers to why they have closed the account.

I'm sure they do. But the call center pople you are talking to don't have access to that information.

It's all about money making and innocent customers are becoming violated.

Your attitiude is wrong.
Credit is not a right.
It's a priviliege that a lender may be willing to allow you form time to time at their discretion.
It's not a "violation" not to be offered a contract with a company.
If someone has planned their finances to rely on a contract they don't have and just made assumptions then more fool them.

Another money making scheme which penalises innocent people.

All the cases I've seen are people who are partially at fault themselves for not managing the cancellation properly.
Are you certain you are making allegations against the right company?
The anecdotes I've seen, Experian have been fine and Equifax are the baddies.
I think you should check to make sure you are mkaing allegations against the right company as they do have similar name.

they are encouraging customers to be in debt informing them that if they cannot pay their credit card off in full, they can pay in small instalments including their interest on top.

No they aren't !!!
They are advising people of their rights.
They are not stopping anyone from paying it off in full.
Anyone who gets in debt has only themselves to blame.

smoothsnake

Hi all,

This happened to me today within about 7 days of opening a Barclaycard Platinum account. My best guess is that the lender decided to vastly reduce their exposure on the previously offered '12 Month Interest Free on purchases' by eliminating certain profiles of borrower. I notice the offer is now '3 Month Interest Free on purchases'.

I have no real issue with this in principle as it's totally in the spirit of T&C's of credit. However, I'm concerned for my credit score which Barclaycard stated on the phone would not be affected.

I have one purchase on the account which will be honoured and payable under the normal terms of the original deal until the balance is at zero but of course no other transactions can be made.

Any thoughts on the credit score aspect?

Many thanks,

Tom

lisyloo

Having a settled account will not ngeatively impact you credit score.
It might actually improve your chance of getting futher credit as it reduces your available credit.

Difficult to say without knowing your available credit to income ratio and your used credit vs available credit and how much history you have.

If you have lots of other credit and lot sof other history then TBH it's probably inproved your rating.

smoothsnake

Thanks lisylou,

I guess my concern is also that the orginal credit limit was £3500 of which I've bought £1600ish of airline tickets for my honeymoon. So the borrowing is around 50% of the available credit... Except now none of the original available credit can be used. I will pay off the balance well before the 12 interest free period but my concern is that it will appear to be the limit of the available credit.

Other than the above, I have a fairly new mortgage at 90% LTV, a tiny personal loan almost settled plus one 5 year old Credit Card with a £2500 limit which is settled in full each month (expenses). All have perfect payment history.

The strange thing is that my income is a good few multiples of the national average. But I guess that doesn't equate to a low risk!

lisyloo

But I guess that doesn't equate to a low risk!

It doesn't mean you're not low risk.
It simply means you're not the sort of customer they are looking for at the moment. Don't take it personally. Perhaps they want customers who get into debt and pay loads of interest? It's not unheard of that people who pay off every month get turned down for certain cards.

There will be nothing to say who closed the account so it will appear exactly as if you closed it yourself.

smoothsnake

Thanks for your thoughtful advice, much appreciated. Happy New Year

ILW

Experian_company_representative wrote: »

Your credit report is actually a copy of ALL the personal data a lender can get from us in your name to help make decisions about new and existing credit. Other sources of data that lenders consider include credit report information about any financial associates, credit application form data and internal behavioural data.

Most lenders assess all of this data using scoring. Some calculate different scores to provide answers to different questions - such as can the customer afford more credit? - and the final decision is reached by considering several scores.

Regular monitoring of customers' credit reports is nothing new and is one way banks and other lenders can demonstrate responsible lending to the regulators.

We do build and provide scoring tools for lenders. These are usually built based on each lender's own experiences and specifications (an exception to this would be a lender new to the UK market) and are then monitored and re-calibrated going forwards to take account of changing customer behaviour and changes to the wider economy.

It's always frustrating when credit is refused or withdrawn but you have to remember that lenders have to manage their books and decide at a high level how much risk they want to take. Lots of risk equals lots of customers but also lots of bad debt. Then they set their scores and pass-marks accordingly. What Experian does is provide some of the data and analytics to help them measure the potential risk of each customer. The lenders then decide how to manage this.

James Jones

Mr Jones

Could you please explain to me how your paid for credit score can have any true value when it takes no account of income or employment status.