bad practise from barclaycard ...

ajamski

I recently applied for a 31 month interest free Barclaycard to transfer a couple of balances as my wife is about to have our first child and we are down one wage. I completed the eligibility form on this site and was given a 90% chance of being successfull in my application. The online application was easy and I was accepted immediately along with my balance transfers which were 'pending' when i checked my barclaycard online account. My new card arrived in 5 days so I phoned to activate the car only to be told that actually I hadn't been accepted and i should destroy my card immediately! What the hell??? I guess it's a good job I didn't spend any more money on my existing cards thinking that I could transfer the balance & spread the debt over 31 months, but I wonder how many people do and get caught out? I find this incredibly irresponsible of Barclaycard and would like to lodge a formal complaint, does anybody know who I should direct this to?

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

Unfortunately Barclaycard have a reputation around here for pulling this stunt. You could try appealing; nothing to lose apart from the price of a stamp.

eskbanker

http://www.barclaycard.co.uk/personal/contact-us

mjm3346

Not unknown, just a couple of other threads where it's happened.


https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4181957


https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4146049

"We have closed your account, our checks on new customers are done in a two fold process, we do initial checks so we can get the account open and card sent out ASAP and then subsequent checks which showed you do not meet our current lending criteria.."

ajamski

thankyou for your quick replies I'm just amazed they can get way with this. It's not that fact that I was turned down so much as what trouble I could have gotten myself into thinking I had 31 months of interest free spending at my disposal. I will contact them directly with a formal complaint.

giblet10

Yes unfortunately you aren't the first and certainly won't be the last to be caught out by Barclaycard's application process.

For what it's worth though, Nationwide did the exact same thing to me a few years ago.

I don't know why this is happening. The only thing I can think is Hunter - because Hunter data isn't cross referenced until the night after application - so any data held by them against you isn't immediately revealed. Well that's how it was when I worked in the industry.

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

giblet10 wrote: »

...because Hunter data isn't cross referenced until the night after application...

That's interesting. Is everything sent in bulk to NH and run as a batch job, rather than in realtime?

giblet10

That's how it was ten years ago yes. Like most things though it had probably become more immediate now!

Other than this, I cannot pinpoint why Barclaycard keep doing this to people ie application goes through ok, customer tries to use card only to find application has been subsequently declined.

CIFAS is another possibility but we always got that data immediately along with any other derogatory info like defaults, CCJ's etc..

Aquamania

ajamski wrote: »

thankyou for your quick replies I'm just amazed they can get way with this. It's not that fact that I was turned down so much as what trouble I could have gotten myself into thinking I had 31 months of interest free spending at my disposal. I will contact them directly with a formal complaint.

You couldn't spend anything on the card without activating it first.

davec1960

Aquamania wrote: »

You couldn't spend anything on the card without activating it first.

True, but the OP could have spent on existing cards in the expectation that a balance transfer could be used to move the debt to the Barclaycard.