New to Experian

Murphybear

I applied for a Halifax Rewards Account and was refused. They used Experian so I have signed up for one of their free trials.

Just got results and not sure if this is what is causing the refusal.

The score was Fair with 2 negative results and no positives.

One of the negatives was I have not had a credit card and closed it fully paid. The second was that the amount I have used on my credit card is near to the maximum. The reason for this is I have just bought furniture with my CC and have the money to pay it off.

I only have one CC and don't want to close it just to improve my score!

It also said I am not in arrears with anything and have had no late payments.

Anyway I can improve my rating without closing my CC account.

Thanks for reading

Hazzinho

How much is your total debt as a percentage of your salary (excluding mortgage). The fact you're at the limit may concern them if it's a high amount. Are you financially ssociated to your partner? Is their credit OK?

The_Boss

Ignore the "score", it does not mean anything at all in the real world. Also the negative comments from Experian are trying to justify their existence. While lenders may be concerned about someone being close to their limits on all cards, being close to the limit on one card is a little different.

To build up your credit profile keep making the repayments on your card - don't close it - and bring the balance down to below half. How long have you had this card? I'd then suggest applying for another card to use in parallel.

What is your salary? Do you have any other Halifax or Lloyds products? How may current accounts do you have? What about any other credit agreements/mobile phone contracts? Are you on the electoral roll at your current address?

Divingmad

Hi there,


After reading a few posts on here I have started using Noddle to keep an eye on my credit report (just to see whether anyone has been snooping), so once your free trial is over at Experian, you may want to consider it as another option.

The_Boss

Divingmad wrote: »

Hi there,


After reading a few posts on here I have started using Noddle to keep an eye on my credit report (just to see whether anyone has been snooping), so once your free trial is over at Experian, you may want to consider it as another option.

Very sensible advice (although ignore the Noddle 'score' too as it is equally worthless)

Murphybear

Thanks for the responses.

No financial associations with anyone else.

Been at this address for 6 years

No loans or other credit agreements, one mobile contract about £11 a month, this did not appear on Experian

I have 2 current accounts, no overdrafts, both marked satisfactory on Experian. One of these is Coop and I was thinking about closing this after negative publicity hence the Halifax application.

I am retired so total income about £800 pcm.

Credit card limit is £1250 and I owe £1100 which will be repaid in full as I have savings to cover this and more. Just remembered, CC company are upping my credit limit by £1000 in May.

One thing I'm not clear about - I understand the credit score from Experian is in itself meaningless and is not seen by anyone else, so what information do they actually provide to would be lenders?

The_Boss

Just the actual data on your file - i.e. the account information (how long, credit limits, balance, late paments etc), electoral roll, CIFAS markers, current address and time there etc etc

matttye

James Jones from Experian repeatedly posts on here that they do actually provide scores to some lenders, but it's not known whether they just provide the score that we see or if they actually use the information provided in the application as well.

So it's best to assume the only thing they'll receive from Experian is the credit file data.

Murphybear

Thanks for this, I'll pay off my CC and see if that makes a difference.

I suppose I yearn for the old days when my father took me into his bank and said he wanted to open an account for me to put my student grant in. Easy peasy:D

optimist68

Murphybear wrote: »

Thanks for this, I'll pay off my CC and see if that makes a difference.

I suppose I yearn for the old days when my father took me into his bank and said he wanted to open an account for me to put my student grant in. Easy peasy:D

You just need to keep the balance of your outstanding debts to below 10% of your credit allowance when applying for further accounts. In your case have £125 or less on your card, not £1100 if you want to improve your score. You'll have to wait a month or so for that to show up though. You can also improve your creditworthiness by demonstrating that you continually maintain your credit at this level.

Some say credit score is not used, but I've been sat with two separate lenders (Finance for car and mortgage) when they've gone into my Experian credit file and mentioned my score. Of course, they do look at the details of the file, but when both lenders saw my score was the highest it could be over the year (they see a graph), they didn't spend too much longer in my file before progressing onto the next stage of the application, i.e. credit file had done it's job.

Murphybear

I've just paid the majority off so my current spend is ~5% of my limit.

They have offered to increase my limit but I have the opportunity to decline. Any thoughts on this? It is unlikely that I will ever need the higher amount but the same spend will be a lower percentage if the credit limit is higher. Hope that makes sense.