Credit check query !

dandy_s

Hi All

I wanted to share my recent experience with my balance transfer and see if any of you could offer any suggestions.

I currently have (and have for a significant amount of time) the following cards:

- Lloyds balance of £620 recently completely paid off
- Barclaycard balance of £850 to be paid off fully within two weeks
- Tesco credit card, used for work expenses and paid back regularly
- Nationwide - 0% balance of £1670
- Halifax card - main spending card with £4000 balance

I received a letter from Lloyds, advising me of their offer of 0% interest for 12 months with a 3% fee. Having paid off my balance with them I thought it would be useful taking this offer and moving some of my Halifax funds over, rather than applying for a new card with a different company.

I have a £3,750 limit with Lloyds and I was told on the phone that I could transfer up to £3500 of that. I instructed Lloyds to do so.

However last week I received a letter saying they had been unable to undertake the balance transfer and gave no reason for this.

My query is would they have done a credit check even if I was transferring my balance to within an existing limit on an existing card??? It seems bizarre when I could technically go out and spend the same amount tomorrow on it....

However I am aware that I unknowingly had a couple of returns on my personal current account recently and this will have been of detriment to my credit score - entirely my own fault... and I have also been in Australia for 10 month so address details may be an issue and I do need to check the Electoral roll, although I don't think anything has changed.

I had a trial with Experian years ago so I haven't actually checked my report yet, I wanted to pick your brains first !!!

Any suggestions / experiences would be appreciated

Thanks in advance
D

Paige_Turner

Aren't Halifax part of Lloyds group??

If so it's unlikely you'd be able to do a BT between the two.

scottishblondie

They won't have run a credit check for a transfer to an existing card. The reason the transfer has been declined will be (as Paige said) because Halifax are part of Lloyds, and generally speaking you can't transfer within the same group.

zerog

You can transfer from Lloyds to a Halifax card though.