a couple of questions for a newbie

lukese

hi people, firstly great site.


i have a bit of debt that im looking at knocking on the head this year, my first start is my credit card, i have just applied and been accepted for a virgin card so im going to transfer the ballance to that and have 13months intrest free allthough i hope to pay it of alot sooner than that its 3400, my question is when i do the balance transfer do i just cut the card up or do i have to cancell it? ie if i stop using it will they stop sending me new ones, i also have a card with hsbc that has about 200 on it, im thinking of paying this of and cancelling that one also as it is rather pointless and it must be affecting my credit rating.


that brings me to my next point.

my credit score with the following companys is as fofllows





Equifax Your credit score is 824
Experian Your score is 496
Callcredit Your callcredit score is 745


why is it so low for experian???

the bad thing on it that i can see is there have been no searches on my file for 12 months, is that really enough to pull it so low?


what are the figures like in general? are they preety average? or are they good?


thanks for any info recieved


Lukese

Megatimbo

Hello lukese,firstly let me welcome you to the site and also a Happy new year to you aswell :T

The balance transfer process is a good way to avoid paying interest on a credit card debt by moving it over to a 0% percent deal.

The old interest paying card can then be cancelled if you dont intend to use it again but i would keep it in case of emergencies,as martin says the card you balance transfer to should not be used to spend on.

Its great if you can pay off the new card before the time runs out i reckon 13 months is a good deal i could only get 12

Dont know about the credit file scores but if you havent any adverse history i wouldnt worry about the score in that you have been accepted for the Virgin card so you are ok as far as i know,hope this helps you, but check out the site about credit cards etc for more info.

Regards M

lukese

thanks mate, still after an insite to the credit scores, is this the wrong forum to obtain my answers?