Good credit but can't get a balance transfer

brad26

Hi, just looking for a bit of advice please. I'm 34 yrs old and have 3 credit cards on the go and a car hire purchase deal,

£8995 Car deal £200 pm

£1200 Barclaycard 6.9% £50 pm

£11000 Halifax 8.9% £130 pm

£8870 MBNA....which is split in 2, £5083 on purchases at 16.8% and £3786 on transfers at 20.9% and fluctuates on the monthly payments coming out on average at about £220 pm

The Barclaycard and Halifax are fine but I'm really struggling with the MBNA card. They tried to jack up the interest rate yet again last year so I refused the rate rise and so it effectively became just a loan.

I tried to get a balance transfer back in January, just for the value of the MBNA loan when it was at £9330 but got declined.

The thing is that I have no bad credit history other than missing a 2 payments on a loan I had with Natwest when I was 24 yrs old and obviously these agreements were all accepted long after that.

Can anyone offer any advise or reason why I'm being declined for a balance transfer. I suspect it may be because I have so much credit on the go but surely if I'm servicing it all correctly that shouldn't be a reason to decline me should it?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Felix_Schalyz

Remember to much debt compared to your salary is classed as major high Risk.
No missed/late payments is only a part of credit scoring.

blitzboy

It will be because of the amount of debt you are in compared to how much you earn.

If they were to give you another 10k on a credit card for example, you may intend just to do a balance transfer and not go further into debt, but from their point of view they are making an extra 10K available to you which could lead to you over-borrowing (further).

Do you have any room on your Barclaycard or does it have a low limit? If you have room they will usually offer an existing customer a 6.9% 'life of balance' transfer.

SnowTiger

brad26 wrote: »

Hi, just looking for a bit of advice please. I'm 34 yrs old and have 3 credit cards on the go and a car hire purchase deal,

£8995 Car deal £200 pm

£1200 Barclaycard 6.9% £50 pm

£11000 Halifax 8.9% £130 pm

£8870 MBNA....which is split in 2, £5083 on purchases at 16.8% and £3786 on transfers at 20.9% and fluctuates on the monthly payments coming out on average at about £220 pm

The Barclaycard and Halifax are fine but I'm really struggling with the MBNA card. They tried to jack up the interest rate yet again last year so I refused the rate rise and so it effectively became just a loan.

I tried to get a balance transfer back in January, just for the value of the MBNA loan when it was at £9330 but got declined.

The thing is that I have no bad credit history other than missing a 2 payments on a loan I had with Natwest when I was 24 yrs old and obviously these agreements were all accepted long after that.

Can anyone offer any advise or reason why I'm being declined for a balance transfer. I suspect it may be because I have so much credit on the go but surely if I'm servicing it all correctly that shouldn't be a reason to decline me should it?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

New credit is additional credit, even if you say you'll use it to pay off old credit. You're already £30,000 (is that right?) in debt. That's huge. Unless you have a huge salary, no one will lend you another ten grand. And if you do have a huge salary, why do you have so much debt?

And, on top of that, you're already struggling to pay off the debt you already have: "...I'm really struggling with the MBNA card."

The two missed payments ten years ago will no longer show on your credit reports.