Can you apply for more than 1 loan to compare rates?

lsatdown

I've applied for a tesco loan, £6 over 4 years.
Had a letter saying I've been accepted but at 16.9%!! (£67 p/m)

Would it affect this application, and/or my credit score if I was to apply for the same loan elsewhere to see if I get offered a better rate?

Do you recommend any where cheaper?

diable

Is that £6000 over 4 years?

Mhambi

You can apply for as many as you like. Just bear in mind that each time a search will be done and is likely to be recorded with your history, eventually if you have too many searches you will find getting negative feedback as people/computers may think that you are desperate (why else so many requests for a loan) or that you are up to no good.

lsatdown

Sorry £6000 yes!
So would you recommend apply elsewhere, or based on tesco's 16.9% offer other lenders will be around the same anyway?

Mhambi

Honestly........ I would take the loan. There are 'search triggers' and once you hit them it becomes more and more difficult to obtain a loan.
But that is only my personal opinion to that.

fozmcfc

£67 p/m isn't correct either, that only make just over £3000 payback in 4 years.

The days of 5.9% and 6.9% loans is generally over. To get lower than 10% APR's, you generally need to borrow £7.5k and above.

Of course everything is subject to status etc...Tesco apparently only generally lend to those with very good/excellent credit profiles, so I would say no harm in trying another company.

But be wary anymore than 3 applications for credit in a 6 month period, generally looks to lenders as being desperate.

lsatdown

Sorry typo again! £167 p/m.
I got a sainsburys credit card last month too, so was unsure whether I would get accepted on a loan too.

fozmcfc

The good news, is like I said in my previous post you are at least being accepted by companies who generally only accepted those who have very good/excellent credit profiles.

I'm surprised that the rate is so high, but it might be because you have a lot of credit available to you compared to your annual income.

I found after applying for 3 credit cards in just over a year, despite getting accepted, the APR offered went up from the first card 16.9% to second card 18.9% to third card 21.9%.

You might have got a better rate had you gone for the loan before the credit card possibly.

dtsazza

While I haven't used them personally (and am not endorsing them per se), I know that Zopa perform a "quotation search" when they're making you an offer. This doesn't show up on your credit report and so won't prejudice other companies checks - it's only if/when you accept the offer that your credit file is modified.

They probably aren't the only company that do this, either. I don't know how easy it is to find this information for a given company, though the ones that do this ought to be boasting about it! If someone knows of a thread on this board listing loan companies that use quotation searches, it would be great to point it out.

jamesd

For £6,000 it's worth looking at a credit card. Take a look at the Virgin card that charges 4% to transfer a balance from a current account (puts money into the account) with 15 months or so at 0% after that. You put your repayments into a savings account so you make money on them. If you haven't saved enough to clear the card after the end of the 0% term you use a 0% balance transfer or 0% for purchases card to let you take care of it.

Beats any loan deals if you can get a sufficient credit limit.

neomieB

Yeah. You can apply for more than 1 loan for as long as you want. But, make sure that you can pay them on time. In spite of preparing and the best of intentions, sometimes people discover themselves unable to repay their payday loans when they come due.