Turned down for a halifax student account - HELP!!

d20a18

Hi there,

I am a second year 'mature' student. I survived the first year with a student account with barclays with a £200 overdraft.

This year I have found myself in difficulties as SFE still haven't calculated my childcare grant - they are estimating another 4 weeks!
I have exhausted all my other student money (maintenance loan etc) paying for the childcare and have taken an emergency loan from the uni for £400 (the max they can lend) and just to top things off i have just lost my part time work too.

I know from experience that barclays will not increase my overdraft as i have 'used it within the last three months' so decided i would try and open a second student account (after a lot of research, its not illegal i promise!).

I had an appointment at my halifax branch today (i have a current account with them already) and i was refused an account!
The guy in the bank said it was due to defaults on my credit history and it must have been in the last year or it wouldn't have affected it.

I came home checked with equifax and i have 2 defaults on my file - one from 2008 and one from 2009.

Should i go back to halifax as these are not within the last 12 months or do you reckon they will still turn me down anyway?
Also, it might be worth mentioning he tried to open a new account rather than change my existing one.
Lastly, if i should not try halifax again or if i do and they still say no should i try a different bank or will they just say no anyway due to too many applications?

Sorry for the essay!!

BASFORDLAD

If you have those defaults you will struggle anywhere. You can try opening a new one but I doubt it will help and of course it isn't illegal....

Why not just open a basic account and accept you can't get an overdraft.....


Ps the guy in the branch was talking crap btw! When he Said about having to be in the last year

Sharon87

Maybe he meant internally you've defaulted, like gone over your unauthorised overdraft limit for your current account. Even if you don't have an overdraft you can still go over the limit (of £0) on a current account. Has this happened in the last year? They use internal checks.

If you haven't been using the account much, then that could be another reason they refused you. If any of that rings any bells it's best to try another bank. 2 credit searches in 6 months is no problems, but it will look bad with any more than that and are more likely to be refused if you try a third one.

jonesMUFCforever

I would not bother any more banks - it is quite clear to me that the defaults are the reason why credit facilities are not forthcoming - any bank making a search on you will find the same information.

I don't have an answer to your immediate problem - sorry.

thatsean

I'm afraid the tall and the short of it is that you need to work out your budget without taking on further debt. The defaults in 08/09 are likely the cause of the declines, given how far behind an account normally needs to be to get to a formal default stage (not judging, just stating). I'd head over to the debt free wannabe board, and keep on to student finance.