Halifax offering me a current account yeah right!!

EllaBeagle

I have an Easycash account with Halifax and have been with them for almost 2 years.

My credit score is currently standing at 166 :eek: and I´m trying so hard to improve it. Every time I ring Halifax for any issues I have they say oh its coming up on the system that you´re eligible for a current account. So I go through the whole application process with them only for them to then say its coming back as refused!

And each time this is probably making my searches section turn yellow or red for applying for too many things.

Does anyone know what my credit score should be before applying for a current account? And how long you have to have had a current account for before you can be accepted for a mortgage? Am I being too optimistic in thinking I can get my credit score sorted within 2 years to get a mortgage? I only have one active credit account on my file thats been kept up to date for a year and I´ve appealed to capital one about having my credit card application refused and explained to them why I´m applying and the reasons for my bad credit score. Thanks for any advice.

davethorp

First thing first the credit score of 166 (whilst being very very low) is utterly meaningless. Please don't pay a credit reference agency any more money for a score as it means nothing. Different lenders all have their own way of credit scoring that is likely very different from the credit reference agencies and there are numerous cases of people on these forums having scores approaching 999 but still being declined for credit which just shows how meaningless the scores are.

That said your randomly generated score is rather low so guessing there are some nasties on your report which will make getting a full bank account very difficult so you may be stuck with basic account for the time being.

steve1980

You should get a copy of your credit HISTORY, ratehr than worrying about the score. This is for the CRA's only.

See what's on there and go from there.

opinions4u

What are the nasties on your credit report, how much are they and how old are they?

CCJs
Defaults
Missed payments

That sort of thing.

Ignore the number. Get on the voters roll. Pay all your bills on time.

thatsean

What he said.

Use the money that you are wasting on the credit score to go towards bill payments and deal with old adverse data. If you've stuff about to drop off then wait until after this before you do more applications.

EllaBeagle

Thanks everyone!

The only default I have is from Barclays for £150. I´ve recently written to them again to sort out repayment but they keep ignoring my letters. I had a phonecall from them last year and thought I was finally going to get the chance to clear it but they wouldn´t accept my offer of £30 a month they said they wanted it paying in full or two halves which I just couldn´t do. It then went to debt collection agency which I was relieved about as they usually accept installments but when I rang them it had been passed back to Barclays and I´m sick of trying to contact them. If I ring up they say I have to write in, if I write in they usually ignore it until I´ve written in about 3 or 4 times then refuse my offer of payment. But if it means I´m going to have to pay in two halves thats all I can do.

I´ve monitored my credit agreements and wrote to the people I have settled defaults with to ask them to take them off early if possible to tidy it up a bit. I´ve also updated my electoral roll so this has turned green.

Its just going so slowly my up to date catalogue account isn´t really making much difference as I´m still on red. I suppose all I can do is wait and make sure I don´t miss any payments.

I have no CCJ´s and my only unpaid default is 2 years old. If I could just get this settled!

Thanks everyone for your advice.

thatsean

You're doing the right things then, you just need to carry on. What is to about the easy ash account that you don't like? There are other basic accounts from other banks that do a better job of pretending to be 'real' accounts if that's what you're after.

EllaBeagle

thatsean wrote: »

You're doing the right things then, you just need to carry on. What is to about the easy ash account that you don't like? There are other basic accounts from other banks that do a better job of pretending to be 'real' accounts if that's what you're after.

I don´t mind the easy cash account it does everything a current account does but the thoughts I have is if I can´t get a current account I have no chance of getting a mortgage.

thatsean

Well a mortgage is secured, so perhaps not entirely true. I only had a lloyds cash card account when I got my mortgage (that was in 2007 though so all you really needed was a smile and a passport). So long as you are taking care of your commitments, and you recent credit file is lovely green zeroes then you should find you get offers. Depends on how keen you are to buy.

EllaBeagle

thatsean wrote: »

Well a mortgage is secured, so perhaps not entirely true. I only had a lloyds cash card account when I got my mortgage (that was in 2007 though so all you really needed was a smile and a passport). So long as you are taking care of your commitments, and you recent credit file is lovely green zeroes then you should find you get offers. Depends on how keen you are to buy.

I really hope so! I only realised I had an easy cash account when my partner pointed it out to me a few months ago. I had no idea things had got so bad that you can´t get a normal bank account anymore. No idea why though! I thought all bank accounts where just bank accounts.

thatsean

Some allow access to credit so that's the reason. How about switching providers? Or something like a phone contrAct (if you need one) could be a good way to get some positive credit data on your file. A sim only deal is generally low cost, and unless you currently owe that provider some money, pretty hard to get declined for. Otherwise it's a patience game! I've been in your situation, so I know that it sucks - but things do improve!