How can Hubby be turned down for American Express

nellienellie

My husband has just applied and been turned down for an American express card due to his credit score. How can this be ?? We are in our sixties and still working. We have lived in the same house for thirty years. We own two houses outright,have money in the bank, and although we have always had finance for our car have never had any other debts. We have never, and I do mean NEVER, faltered on a payment. All our bills are paid on time,credit card cleared each month etc,etc. I find it embarrassing and a bit scarey. I would appreciate any advice on what to do next.

seven-day-weekend

Maybe he does not have enough credit history.

nellienellie

Yes, I did wonder about that. It seems a bit silly though as we feel we are a very,very low risk with an excellent track record.

seven-day-weekend

My son found it awkward getting a mortgage because he had no credit history, although he has never been in debt, that's what made me think of it.

midnight_express

nellienellie wrote: »

My husband has just applied and been turned down for an American express card due to his credit score. How can this be ?? We are in our sixties and still working. We have lived in the same house for thirty years. We own two houses outright,have money in the bank, and although we have always had finance for our car have never had any other debts. We have never, and I do mean NEVER, faltered on a payment. All our bills are paid on time,credit card cleared each month etc,etc. I find it embarrassing and a bit scarey. I would appreciate any advice on what to do next.

I think the problem is they wouldn't make much money from you.

CLAPTON

what do his credit files say?
salary?
electoral roll?

CLAPTON

midnight_express wrote: »

I think the problem is they wouldn't make much money from you.

about 60% of us pay our credit files in full and never have difficulty in getting new credit cards.
CC companies make commission of every transaction so make lots of money out of us at very very low risk of bad payment

nellienellie

We do not have his credit score. Only a letter from AE telling us he has been refused due to his credit score.

YorkshireBoy

nellienellie wrote: »

We do not have his credit score. Only a letter from AE telling us he has been refused due to his credit score.

You don't have a universal 'credit score'. Amex have credit scored him based on the details he put on the application form and information obtained from one or more credit reference agencies.


The letter should tell him which agency(ies) they searched, so if he really is concerned (and you really do feel "embarrassed"...although I'm not sure why!?) he should obtain the same information and take a look for any errors.


Just out of interest, is your household income >£20K? And by "sixties", do you mean past normal retirement age, or not?

BugsyBrowne

You could own 10 houses and have 20k in savings 'Amex done their own scoring based on your credit history which at this time you were too high risk for them to grant you credit.

sirwiggum

'Credit scores' are arbitrary numbers on consumer reports, they mean very little.

CC companies use a table of information, if they see anything of concern it is very much a case of 'computer says no'.

Make sure you are on the Electoral Roll, use a tool like noddle to make sure that you don't have any adverse markers on your credit file - if you do, you can at least see to chase these up.