Your Credit Rating: How it works and How to improve it Discussion Area

robbiet27

Almost 6 years ago I had a CCJ for £8136 - due to come off in May 2008.

I have a high interest loan of £5000 (balance £4500) and two high interest credit cards of £400 limit on both (about £100 to pay off each) and a catalogue of £1500 limit (clear).

I recently got my credit score from Equifax and it was 322 (Poor). The only bad thing is the CCJ of 5.5 years ago. I thought with the above accounts, paid timely and most cleared, length of time elapsed since CCJ my rating would have been better!

Any advice of who would consider me for a decent loan / credit card with reasonable interest/APR rates to clear my high interest loan and reduce monthly payment? I do not want to apply for lots of credit.

danthemoneysavingman

robbiet27 wrote: »

Almost 6 years ago I had a CCJ for £8136 - due to come off in May 2008.

I have a high interest loan of £5000 (balance £4500) and two high interest credit cards of £400 limit on both (about £100 to pay off each) and a catalogue of £1500 limit (clear).

I recently got my credit score from Equifax and it was 322 (Poor). The only bad thing is the CCJ of 5.5 years ago. I thought with the above accounts, paid timely and most cleared, length of time elapsed since CCJ my rating would have been better!

Any advice of who would consider me for a decent loan / credit card with reasonable interest/APR rates to clear my high interest loan and reduce monthly payment? I do not want to apply for lots of credit.

you should if poss wait till CCJ drops off. i'm sure you wont get a decent rate loan before then unless you opt for secured, and then you could lose your house (if applicable) should you fail to repay.
that score really is extremely low, and should (not guaranteed) shoot up once the CCJ disappears if you've missed no payments on your other borrowings

robbiet27

danthemoneysavingman

cheers for the advice. i can wait, just thought i would try and save some £££ by getting a lower loan rate. i am disappointed by the credit score so hopefully in may when the ccj comes off my rating improves dramatically.

ramagel

Tarebare wrote: »

My first credit report looks reasonably good but there are 2 credit cards where I have "1 month" late payments back in 2001/2002. Since then, everything's been on time.

I don't think it'll matter. I have a big bust up every now and again when the Halifax Bank takes a day longer than it should to get money from my current account to my Halifax Credit card - I get a late fee and sometimes interest, which I always get back. I never thought to check my Credit Rating until today (free, of course!): the b*stards have 1'd me twice for the poor design of their systems interfaces and overnight batch-processing jobs!

But it only seems to have cost me 1 point as my score is 999, so I don't think you need worry, especially if everything else is pretty much OK.

helping_hubby

We've been trying to shuffle husbands debts on cards to get the best interest rate possible.

He applied for an M&S 3.9% life of balance card around June 07 and got rejected. He got accepted on a 0% for a year card though (RBS).

He tried applying this month to Goldfish 3.9% or so till 2010. But got rejected again.

I'm getting a little worried with 2 rejections about what we're going to do when the 0% card runs out next year.

We got all 3 credit reports (£2 each). And all cards/debts are showing as 0's, ie everything has been paid in time. I assume the rejections are down to the total amount of debt he has, or how many cards (currently 4 cards and 2 loans)?

I'm looking into trying to repay the 0% card in time, but at £4k, that's a stretch. Just nervous about him keep getting rejected and then worsening the credit rating further and getting stuck in a rut.

Any advice appreciated.

ramagel

helping_hubby wrote: »

We've been trying to shuffle husbands debts on cards to get the best interest rate possible.

This gets dangerously into the area of family politics, so do ignore what I say or tell me to MYOB by all means.

If YOU have a better credit rating than he does, maybe you can take out a 0%/low% card and take some of the burden off him for a bit, thereby getting rid of his debt more quickly/closing one card. After that, if his rating looks better, he can get a new low/0% card and take the shifted debt back from you. Or just keep paying off the debt on your card.

Does that make any sense?

I assume btw that you can shift balances between Mr & Mrs perhaps via a joint bank account if necessary.

helping_hubby

ramagel wrote: »

This gets dangerously into the area of family politics, so do ignore what I say or tell me to MYOB by all means.

If YOU have a better credit rating than he does, maybe you can take out a 0%/low% card and take some of the burden off him for a bit, thereby getting rid of his debt more quickly/closing one card. After that, if his rating looks better, he can get a new low/0% card and take the shifted debt back from you. Or just keep paying off the debt on your card.

Does that make any sense?

I assume btw that you can shift balances between Mr & Mrs perhaps via a joint bank account if necessary.

No, I don't see how this is possible.

Zebedee69

Hey,

Those credit worthey score things are a load of !!!!!!! No use to anyone. There is only one person who knows if your able to get a card. And thats the guy who made the card!

danthemoneysavingman

helping_hubby wrote: »

No, I don't see how this is possible.

apply for a card with hubby as secondary card holder (if your score is better). as he's named on the account, the debt could therefore be transferred. sorry if i missed the point, your previous answer was somewhat limited in detail!!

helping_hubby

danthemoneysavingman wrote: »

apply for a card with hubby as secondary card holder (if your score is better). as he's named on the account, the debt could therefore be transferred. sorry if i missed the point, your previous answer was somewhat limited in detail!!

That answers my question. I didn't know this could be done. I'll look into it and think about it.