Cash accounts - At my wits end : (

MattyN

I only registered today in a final attempt at help from what a situation which is fast becoming a total nightmare.

I opened a cash account with Lloyds TSB around 7 years ago whilst i lived overseas. At this time a cash account was the only account that was available to me due to poor address history/credit etc. I was advised that as long as there was a regular income paid in they would invariably upgrade it in a few months. From the month i opened this account i have credited regular money into it and to date well over 100k + has been through this account and nicely invested by Lloyds. I have since moved back to the U.K and still i pay regular amounts into this account and every month i am refused an upgrade to an account i can at least draw via an ATM whereveer i am and have the services of an o/d.

I have been settled with my fiancee now for two years, work full time, perm address and all my salary is paid dirent intot he account every month onthe same date. Standing order are set up on this account and fairly substantial salary payment occasionaly go through. Still no upgrade. I have spent countless amounts on credit reports and only last month stopped them. I have no adverse credit history and in fact have just obtained a credit card so my report shows now i have active credit. But still no account.

Is it worth me writing to Head Office ? I have tried recently to open an account elsewhere and still no joy, i have spoken with Experian etc....still nothing.

I am quite a resourceful kind of guy but am fast running out of ideas and just cannot over come the fact that i have been loyal to Llyods for so long and so much money has gone through their hands and i am relentlessly knocked back by what would seem "Computer says no" situation.

Please, anyone any advice would be appreciated like no other i have ever received !

izools

It sounds to me like you have been trapped in the dreaded Credit Policy Decline that affects a lot of Lloyds TSB customers, some rightly, many wrongly.

I had held a standard current account with Lloyds TSB for two years, two years of always being in credit, turning over four figures a month, running the account in an exemplary manner, before they removed this dreaded CPD marker from my account and allowed me to apply for credit. But when the CPD finally came off all it did was allow me to have upto £3,000 overdraft at 11.9% (£3K? Mad) but still pre-declined me for all other types of credit account. Pre-declined. They claim this was due to adverse data on my credit file, but three points they could not satisfactorally respond to were:

1. If there's adverse data, why will you give me a gargantuan overdraft?
2. How would you know what data is present on my credit when you've not performed any form of credit check on me since I opened the account?
3. Here is my Equifax credit file. Show me the adverse data. Oh. You can't? Huh.

I moved bank. Perhaps it's time to end your relationship with them and vote with your feet, too?

By the way, have you in fact obtained a copy of your credit file and read through it?

MattyN

Hi there, I must say that having only registered for the help i am greatly apprecaitive of the reply.

The thing is I have a copy and was subscribed to them all for soooo long. Whilst i may have in the past spent many years travelling around and overseas etc i am pretty sure as to how the whole credit debacle works and traps. That said I have nothing adverse on my file. I did what you also did and actually turned up in branch with a copy in my defying any further knockbacks or referals back to Experian etc....still nada.

I am happy to switch accounts...more than happy excpet i was knocked back before Xmas again apprently for no reason...im just worried that if i go on an all out crusade applying for bank accounts and knowing that i could be knocked back 1st attempt that it go further against me.

So angry and frustrated with it all. Thats why i was maybe suggesting writing to head office in the city providing all in the hope that a human being could explain what the problem is as a long term customer AND open a damn account.

AAAAAAAAAAAaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggghhhhh !

izools

TBH I wouldn't bother. I fought tooth and nail against Lloyds TSB's decisions and fob offs. I didn't actually have any need for a credit facility from them, but I was taking it as far as I could out of principle purely because every single shred of information I got, including info from two branch managers, several members of the credit referrals team, et al, was all in contracdiction, and all easily proven to be completely incorrect.

Problem is Lloyds TSB use a "Neural Net" credit scoring system which doesn't have pre-defined critera for accepting or declining applications - it looks at existing accounts, and existing customers with credit facilities - how well they are doing with said facilities - and as the account performance trends change on existing accounts - the type of customer, their current account conduct trends, their spending habbits, every thing about them the computer can analyse - is fed back into the credit scoring model, which them compares the applicant against other customers with a similar or identical profile - and based on how similiarly profiled existing customers perform - it makes a decision.

I don't know if this makes any sense to you but the possbile downfall, from the customers perspective, of a system like this is there is not only no human intervention involved atall - or even the option of human intervention - but no one can say what the criteria are as it constantly changes.

It's a fantastic system in principle but as you and I found out, doesn't always work and is very bad idea in a setup where there isn't an option to refer the decision making to an underwriter to manually review.


May I ask -

Who did you apply with and get declined for for a bank account recently?

MattyN

hi there,

Santander.............referred to head office....refused.
Barclays a few days ago and await a reply..........

Just seen a similar thread actually re: Citibanks "steling current account"..visited the site and no account by that name...although there are two options a) Plus account b) Access account....if ican establish which one said Sterling refers to i shall try with them.

Wits end and nada to lose now : (

izools

I do think it would be a very good idea to get a copy of your credit report.

Experian do a 30 day trial for Credit Expert and as long as you're on the electoral role, got atleast one account at your current address showing up on the file, and have a debit card linked to that address, they give you instant access online.

You'd do well to check for things like:

> Is your electoral role registration actually showing up?
> Is the address that appears on your credit file correct, but formatted differently to how you put it on application forms?
> Is there any incorrect data?
> Is there any adverse data relating to an account you forgot you had - or perhaps an old default that was re-defaulted by a debt collection agency illegally?

Worth a look. And it won't set you back a penny as long as you cancel the Credit Expert membership within 30 days otherwise they'll rip you off for £15 / Month

Experian_company_representative

You've made it clear you've checked your credit report and there's no apparent problem with it. Hopefully you're also on the electoral roll (as in 'roll' of paper, which is what it used to be). I suggest you go back to Lloyds and ask them to tell you the principle reason for refusing your application. They are required by the Lending Code to tell you this. You might then get a better idea of the problem and what you can do to rectify it.

James Jones

izools

Experian_company_representative wrote: »

You've made it clear you've checked your credit report and there's no apparent problem with it. Hopefully you're also on the electoral roll (as in 'roll' of paper, which is what it used to be). I suggest you go back to Lloyds and ask them to tell you the principle reason for refusing your application. They are required by the Lending Code to tell you this. You might then get a better idea of the problem and what you can do to rectify it.

James Jones

Granted, but perhaps whilst OP is doing very well to find out the problem, perhaps they aren't overly familiar with exactly what to look out for on their credit report.

To someone who hasn't had a lot of experience in that field the data on your credit file can be quite daunting and easy to mis-interpret

Good advice on asking for the principle reason for the decline though - if they say "Credit Policy Decline" or similar, you know it's got nothing to do with your Experian file rather their internal scoring system.

tigerlily44

Experian_company_representative wrote: »

You've made it clear you've checked your credit report and there's no apparent problem with it. Hopefully you're also on the electoral roll (as in 'roll' of paper, which is what it used to be). I suggest you go back to Lloyds and ask them to tell you the principle reason for refusing your application. They are required by the Lending Code to tell you this. You might then get a better idea of the problem and what you can do to rectify it.

James Jones

I have just looked at the lending code and can't see where it says that they have to tell you the principle reason for decline. I have not been given a reason for upgrade from a basic account to current account by RBS and would like to be able to quote this

thanks

tiger

stclair

Experian_company_representative wrote: »

You've made it clear you've checked your credit report and there's no apparent problem with it. Hopefully you're also on the electoral roll (as in 'roll' of paper, which is what it used to be). I suggest you go back to Lloyds and ask them to tell you the principle reason for refusing your application. They are required by the Lending Code to tell you this. You might then get a better idea of the problem and what you can do to rectify it.

James Jones

]

Im sorry to say banks are under no obligation to give anyone a reason for a decline. If customers was given a reason then this would encourage them to try and beat the system so to speak.

agrinnall

http://www.lendingstandardsboard.org.uk/docs/lendingcode.pdf

It doesn't appear that the code specifically covers the issue of changing from one type of account to another. There are clauses that do require the bank to provide the main reason for a decline but these are linked to a particular request e.g. clause 56 is for overdrafts. It might however be worth asking anyway, pointing out that they would have to tell you the main reason in some circumstances so why not in others.