Advice needed regarding credit limit

mus2fa

Hi everyone.

I have a Creations card with a balance of around £4500 (credit limit of £5000) and a Barclaycard with a balance of £1800 (credit limit of £2000).

My 0% interest free period has ended on my creations card and I am looking for a new card to transfer my balance from both of my existing cards.

I applied online for a Tescos credit card a couple of days ago. The application process is in 8 steps but after step 6 it told me that based on the information provided I have been accepted for a card with a credit limit of only £2500. It then asked me if i wanted to continue or cancel. I wanted a higher credit limit so I rang up Tesco customer services to ask if it was possible to have it increased. I was told by the rep that I would not be able to increase the limit for 12 months after taking out the card.

My question is that if I was to apply for another card to try and get a higher credit limit will they be able to find out that I have been offered a card from tescos and I have declined it? Will that affected whether I am accepted for a card? I asked the Tesco rep and he said that on my credit report it will just show that a credit check was done and that is all. Is that correct?

If I apply for another card and I am accepted, will the Tesco offer still be open to me? Or will Tesco's withdraw the offer? The Tesco rep told me that they would be sending out a credit agreement to sign if i wished to take out the card.

So shoud I apply for another card and see if I can get a higher limit? And if it is not high enough should I move what I can to the new card and then accept the tesco card and transfer the rest to the tesco card?

I would be very grateful if anyone could help me.

Thank you.

jpb77

Do you know if Tesco gave you a quote at step 6 or was this the decision page? and asked to proceed to step 7 to accept the quote and continue? If it was a quote (soft search) lenders will not know. If it was the decision page a hard search will show to lenders that you have applied for a credit card but not from who!

mus2fa

jpb77 wrote: »

Do you know if Tesco gave you a quote at step 6 or was this the decision page? and asked to proceed to step 7 to accept the quote and continue? If it was a quote (soft search) lenders will not know. If it was the decision page a hard search will show to lenders that you have applied for a credit card but not from who!

Thanks for your reply.

It said something like "based on the information provided so far you may be eigible for a card with a £2500 credit limit and 21.9% APR" so I guess it was just a quote.

Should I apply for another card and see if I can get a higher limit? And if I do get accepted but the limit isnt high enough will I still be able to get the tesco card afterwards? Or will Tesco find out that I have got another card and possibly withdraw their offer?

mus2fa

Can anyone give me any advice? Thanks in advance.

mus2fa

Having not received many replies to my opening post I tried applying for a Nationwide card to try and get a higher credit limit. I was only quoted a £1000 limit so I cancelled the application process and applied for an RBS and Bank of Scotland but was refused by both.

Can someone please advise me as to what I should do now? What are the chances of me being accepted for by another credit card company if I apply. Will the two refusals have affected my chances? Should I just accept the Tesco and Nationwide cards and transfer as much balance as I can? Will those offers that were made to me still even be available now that I have been refused credit?

Please help.

CLAPTON

you will need to check your credit files to see how many searches you have and what your files say.

however if you are being offered 0% deals (you aren't clear about what you applied for) but only get a small credit limit the obviously take it... a £1000 at 0% is better than £1000 at 25%

YorkshireBoy

Your problem now is that...

1. You're (possibly) racking up credit searches, and

2. You're presenting a picture of financial distress in that you're very much maxed out on your existing cards.

If you've other negative points (short time in job, renter, mediocre salary, financial associate with debt, etc), then the cumulative effect could be flat rejections in the short (and possibly medium) term.

As has been said above, when you're in such a situation it's best to take what you can when you can. Hopefully the deals you've already looked into will be available when you formally complete your applications.

mus2fa

CLAPTON wrote: »

you will need to check your credit files to see how many searches you have and what your files say.

however if you are being offered 0% deals (you aren't clear about what you applied for) but only get a small credit limit the obviously take it... a £1000 at 0% is better than £1000 at 25%

Thanks for your reply.

I checked experian and it says that I have a fair credit score of 752.

3 Positive factors:
>The age of your accounts indicates lenders are likely to view you as lower risk
>The value of your highest credit limit indicates a lower risk
>You have a significant amount of successfully settled non-mail order accounts

1 Negative factor:
>The usage of your available credit indicates a higher risk
(Having high Credit Limit Utilisation (balance compared to limit) shows that you need to use a large proportion of your available credit and you may also be having difficulty increasing this available credit.Lower utilisation is more likely to be viewed as lower risk by most lenders.)


I have two credit cards: Barclaycard balance is £1800 (limit of £2000)
Creations card balance is £4460 (limit of £5000).
Only other credit I have available is a £1600 overdraft.

I have not had any late or missed payments.

mus2fa

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

Your problem now is that...

1. You're (possibly) racking up credit searches, and

2. You're presenting a picture of financial distress in that you're very much maxed out on your existing cards.

If you've other negative points (short time in job, renter, mediocre salary, financial associate with debt, etc), then the cumulative effect could be flat rejections in the short (and possibly medium) term.

As has been said above, when you're in such a situation it's best to take what you can when you can. Hopefully the deals you've already looked into will be available when you formally complete your applications.

There are five credit searches on my credit report.

Tesco: Identification: generic check and Credit card.
Nationwide: Credit card quotation
RBS: credit card
Bank of scotland: credit card

Will all of thes be seen by other lenders? The Tesco's rep I spoke to said that they would not be able to see it. I don't understand why there were two searches for Tescos. One was a generic identification check and the other is showing as a credit card search.

Are all the credit card searches seen by lenders?

mus2fa

I noticed a couple of things on my report that I wasn't sure about.
1) I have an overdraft limit of £1600 on my Barclays bank account. I also have a reserve limit of £500 pounds on my account so if I go over my overdraft limit I am charged £22 every 5 days that I am over the limit up to a total of £500. On my credit report it says that I have a total of £2100 available credit in my bank account. Is that fair? Should the £500 be included in the available credit? Should I add a note on there explaining this?
2) I cancelled a Debenhams card (credit limit of £500) last week but it is still showing as active. How long does it take for it to show as settled on a credit report? Should I add a note saying that I have cancelled the card?

As a result of the above my available credit is showing as:
Overdraft Plus Reserve: £2100
Creations card: 5500(limit) - 4480 (balance) = £1020
Barclaycard: 2000 (limit) - 1801 (balance) = £199
Debenhams card: £500
Total = £3819
In actual fact the available credit I have should be:
Overdraft: £1600
Creations: £1020
Barclaycard: £199
Total: £2819
Is there anything I can do about this? Can I leave a note on my credit report explaining the above?

mankarni

I guess you can ask the Barclay Bank to correct the overdraft limit shown in your credit report because it is not standard credit limit.[Not sure their practices though, but worth checking] The other limit should remove from the report normally within max 60 days. [banks normally report every month but if you have missed this months schedule; it would be reported in the next, Your Credit report tells when was it last updated by that bank I believe]--I do not think a note on the credit report will be helpful in this circumstance.