How Do people get so many credit cards?

chevalier

Now at the outset I would like to say that I am not judging anyone. But I am genuinely curious, as to how people get 3,4 or more credit cards, all of which are being used at the same time

I thought there were rules now about how much credit someone could have?

Like I said just curious
chev

lynzpower

seems there isnt chev

i had 6 at one point, simple reason, they were offered to me and I wanted the "free money"

if you offered me anything like this in my weaker dumber days I would have snapped your hand of and not even asked the consequences,

you live you learn, well I did

Broken_hearted

DH had 4 with a combined limit of around £12,000. Then I had 2, plus we had store 5 cards. So thas 11 cards between us. How did we get them? The banks/stores kept offering them.

Sukey

I had 10 with credit limits ranging from between £5000 and £15000. I now owe just over £80k on these cards with barely anything to show for it and life is now looking extremely bleak.
They kept being offered to me and I kept seeing it as a way to use one to pay the other as my salary didn't cover anywhere near the required minimum payments.
Whilst I absolutely know that my debt is my responsibility and down to my own stupidity, I do feel that there should be at least a code of conduct regarding how much credit the banks can let one person have. I earn £21k and yet I was allowed to have £100k of credit available! It seems laughable that this can happen, yet it's so not funny now and I'm certainly not laughing.

Suke

vivaladiva

lynzpower wrote:

i had 6 at one point, simple reason, they were offered to me and I wanted the "free money"

if you offered me anything like this in my weaker dumber days I would have snapped your hand of and not even asked the consequences,

you live you learn, well I did

Me too!

I have a card solely in my name - I have an income of less than £500 pa and a credit limit of £16500 - how dumb is that?

immoral_angeluk

Simple. I kept getting accepted! I have 4 credit/store cards but also had a capital one card before I paid it off and cancelled it. Will hopefully have 0 soon as going to be cancelling them as we pay them off.

james32_uk

Wasnt there a law supposed to be coming in limiting it to a set number? I remember reading about it around a year ago.

SSB

Hi
Apparently there is virtually no checking or cross referencing when it comes to applying for credit cards, therefore the card provider is not aware of any existing cards. Although finances are a personal responsibility, many people apply for ccards in panic and think they will be able to clear them.

Especially many young people have no understanding of how much it is all to pay back. I agree with Sukey, there should be a code of conduct and more extensive background checks.

flowerofscotland

Sukey wrote:

I had 10 with credit limits ranging from between £5000 and £15000. I now owe just over £80k on these cards with barely anything to show for it and life is now looking extremely bleak.
They kept being offered to me and I kept seeing it as a way to use one to pay the other as my salary didn't cover anywhere near the required minimum payments.
Whilst I absolutely know that my debt is my responsibility and down to my own stupidity, I do feel that there should be at least a code of conduct regarding how much credit the banks can let one person have. I earn £21k and yet I was allowed to have £100k of credit available! It seems laughable that this can happen, yet it's so not funny now and I'm certainly not laughing.

Suke

I agree it is ridiculous the amount that it is possible to borrow. However I think the banks are starting to share information about all credit and not just defaults in order to reduce this happening (sound of stable doors being slammed shut).

girlsmum

I have never had a problem with getting credit, at the current count i have 7 CC and 1 store card, i owe just under £6k on these, (nothing on the store card its for Ikea and i only got it as you get free coffee when you show it :beer: )some i owe nothing on now, i have just been getting them and doing balance transfers for better rates, i should really cancel some of them

immoral_angeluk

It's harder to get credit if you have a total amount of debt thats over a certain percentage of your income apparently... but other than that I don't think they really care how many you have as long as you give them the money!