proving income on a application

londonTiger

gglaze wrote: »

Trolling or not...

Anyway it is an interesting question. In general, do card companies ever require proof of income, and has anyone had to actually deal with this?

There's another thread going on along the similar lines. I'm a freelancer (and someone who declares all their income properly, unlike OP). I've never put freelancer down on my cc applications and just put employed. I'm a director of a very low income company and I just declare myself an employee of that company and overstate the income.

Normally they have credit checks and other background checks done by credit card companies so they just make sure you're good for the credit and time of application. They may later try to verify the income claims later on if there are issues (just like how car insurance companies will examine your car using a fine toothcomb after an accident to find anything that they can use to void your insurance if they need to).

Investigating income claims & what not is expensive. Considering that the average earning per credit card applicant is probably £50 or less a year - it's not worthwhile for them to spend man hours verifying all the claims on registration

But I've always been sensible with credit cards and paid them on time and paid more than minimum so it's never reached that point yet.

Doshwaster

reefy2012 wrote: »

how would i go about doing that legally tho as that 23k is for freelance graphics design and can vary in amounts such as.. one peson pays me £20 10 people can pay me £80 and a few may pay me £300 etc it depends as bank statement is very confusing to where my income is concerned.

"How to do it legally": http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/sa/index.htm

ElkyElky

It's probably easier than it should be to lie about what your income is but from my personal experience, I think your repayment history matters more than what your income is. There are systems in place to try detect this sort of fraud and if you know how they work then you'll know how to possibly avoid detection.

Lying on applications is fraud and it will eventually come back and bite you in the back side, even if it's 6 months or 12 years down the line. Is 6 years worth of ruined credit history and possible legal action worth it for a slightly higher credit limit? You decide.

Credit limits are based on your affordability, what's the point trying to get a much higher credit limit than what you can actually afford? Unless you're planning on doing a bunk then it's pointless.

The only time I've ever been asked to provide proof of income and identity was for my first ever credit card several years ago and a personal loan. Now that I have a developed impeccable credit history, I don't have to provide proof.

I think you should be more concerned about the HMRC rather than the banks.