how long for searches to show up?

perthperson

Hullo, I've lurked for a week or two but have a couple of questions now.

I would ideally like to apply for the 18mth Capital One Card (zest magazine in WH Smiths in Perth), an EGG card and the long term low interest Texaco card (to pay off present credit card and loan quicker)

On the forum some people advise applying for a few cards at the same time and others say space out applications. By applying for a few at the same time does that mean literally on the same day. If I sent off my Capital One application and then the next day applied on the internet for the EGG and Texaco cards - how long would the searches take to appear on my credit files. Wouldn't they whiz through the air electronically and appear instantly on the credit ref agencies files?

I've got copies of the credit reports and while neither is bad, the Experian one shows me in a better light than the Equifax one. Am I right in thinking from previous forum questions that Experian is the main one that Capital One, Egg and Texaco use for searches?

Thanks for your help.

Rangdo

The searches should appear on the bureau files daily, but whether credit card companies have daily access to that data (and whether they upload to the bureaus daily) or not is a bit hit'n'miss.

From my own knowledge, cc companies have their own scoring system which will take in elements of the bureau info (no. searches, total balance reported, etc) to form their own credit score - given the IT requirements for daily downloads of externally held data vs monthly downloads, it's probably reasonable to assume multiple apps made in one month are less likely to show up to the competing applications than if they're spread over different months (hope that makes sense) - don't take that as absolute gospel though, each company will work differently

Fatboy_NSS

A search will show straight away, so if you apply for Cap 1 now and then Texaco in 10 mins the search will show up on the Texaco app, assuming they both use the same credit reference agency.

perthperson

Um - which one's right (you both sound so sure)

creditman

Searches show up straightaway. Account details are updated monthly.

Fatboy_NSS

Account details are updated whenever a bank wants to update them, but this is usually once a month in a batch process.