unused credit card question

jason87

lisyloo wrote: »

Right I've just gone on to Equifax and checked my own credit report on-line.

It does not show the balance month-by-month, so assuming this is the same information that lenders get, then they cannot distinguish between a used account and an unused one (as they can see no historical balances).

There is no additional information other than "settled".
There is nothing it indicate there was no usage.

To my knowledge this appears identical to a used account.

If anyone knows anydifferent then please enlighten me.

Thats exactly what I thought, which was the reason i started this thread, it doesn't show anything about me NOT using the card, it just shows payments month by month and 'settled'.

Unless you specifically knew my situation, there's no way you could tell i didnt activate or use this card (going by the data i can see anyway)

Dr_Cuckoo3

jason87 wrote: »

it doesn't show anything about me NOT using the card, it just shows payments month by month and 'settled'.

"Balance" month by month

Nat West have only shared enhanced data for the last 10 months , so your account was not active in the 10 months (settled 10 months ago)

lisyloo

What cards you got ?

Amex (settled)
MBNA
Capital one (settled)
Ulster bank (settled)
egg
nationwide (settled)
barclaycard (settled)
halifax

Balance: £0 £204 £328 £212 £439 £295 £270 £256 £0 £109 £216 £107

Which type of report are you looking at please?

Nat West have only shared enhanced data for the last 10 months , so your account was not active in the 10 months (settled 10 months ago)

So they can see it wasn't being used for 10 months, but before that they cannot tell.
So what's the verdict on that then?
I would stick with what I said before because for the majority of the period they cannot tell the account was unused.

jason87

Dr_Cuckoo3 wrote: »

What cards you got ?




Company name: MBNA EUROPE BANK LIMITED
Account type: Credit card / Store card
Started: 02/03/2007
Current Balance: £0
Credit Limit: £5,000
Credit Limit History: £3,500 (03/04); £2,300 (10/03); £1,000 (05/03)
File Updated for the Period to: 02/01/2011
Summary of payment history: In the last 36 months of account activity, the number of status 1-2 is 0 and the number of status 3 is 0
Account Status: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Balance: £0 £204 £328 £212 £439 £295 £270 £256 £0 £109 £216 £107
Payment Amount: £217 £101 £61 £10 £5 £8 £9 £0 £15 £58 £51 £20
Previous Statement: £316 £216 £432 £259 £274 £258 £156 £0 £111 £96 £107 £90
Cash Advance: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Advance Amount: £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0
Payment Code: M M M M M
Promotional Rate: N N Y Y Y Y Y Y N N N

what report are you looking at?
mine just shows 0's

Dr_Cuckoo3

lisyloo wrote: »

Amex (settled)
MBNA
Capital one (settled)
Ulster bank (settled)
egg
nationwide (settled)
barclaycard (settled)
halifax

Previous Statement Balance, Payment Amount, Number of Cash Advances During Month , Minimum Payment? ,Credit Limit Change appear on Equifax since April 2009 for Halifax Credit cards . January 2009 for Capital One and MBNA and from December 2010 for EGG

lisyloo wrote: »

Which type of report are you looking at please?

Experian subscription with unlimited reports in respect of my earlier reply and Capital One Equifax full report within the last two weeks for this reply

lisyloo wrote: »

So they can see it wasn't being used for 10 months, but before that they cannot tell.
So what's the verdict on that then?
I would stick with what I said before because for the majority of the period they cannot tell the account was unused.

I suspect the OP's account was closed more than 10 months ago , it was opened 2/3 years ago and never activated - therefore enhanced data will not have been recorded if the account was not open within the last 10 months
The OP's account could well have been recorded as a row of "UUUU"(Unclassified) or "DDDD" (Dormant) based on conduct

He has a row of 0000's with no balance recorded monthly (possibly current/final balance) and the credit limit .

0000's = green squares on Equifax - so the information is the same as someone using their account and paying on time (balance and credit limit recorded on Experian thoughout the life of the account though)


The purpose of my post was to correct your assertion that balances month-by-month are not recorded by the CRA when they are in respect of the accounts that you hold (MBNA , EGG , Barclaycard)

Dr_Cuckoo3

jason87 wrote: »

what report are you looking at?
mine just shows 0's

Experian and Equifax , your account was settled/closed before October 2009 / April 2010 ,

Interestingly the enhanced data appears from October 2009 on Experian for RBS /NATWEST and from April 2010 on Equifax for RBS and not at all for NATWEST

jason87

Dr_Cuckoo3 wrote: »

He has a row of 0000's with no balance recorded monthly (possibly current/final balance) and the credit limit .

0000's = green squares on Equifax - so the information is the same as someone using their account and paying on time (balance and credit limit recorded on Experian thoughout the life of the account though)

So that's a good thing right?
I didn't use the card but its showing some history. Instead of just D's or unused etc.

izools

Yes, it is good.

It means other creditors will see the card as having been used, and repaid on time, for however long it says it was active on your credit file.

So a definite plus!

Well done :beer:

lisyloo

The purpose of my post was to correct your assertion that balances month-by-month are not recorded by the CRA when they are in respect of the accounts that you hold (MBNA , EGG , Barclaycard)

Thank you for the information. I have learnt something new.

I cannot yet see these on my Equifax report yet but I may need a new one to see this as it's a newish thing.

Experian_company_representative

Jason - the green zeros are good and can only help your credit rating.

I think the confusion here is because while most card companies now share more detailed card usage data about customers - including ATM withdrawals, amount of last payment etc - some have only started doing this fairly recently.

As a result, there's a good chance that NatWest weren't reporting this usage data a few years ago when your account was open. So this explains why some other money savers are seeing additional data for their current cards. Any new cards you take out are likely to have these extra data fields.

James Jones