Appealing a decline - Success Story

Simon7685

I thought I would post my success after appealing a CC decline.

I have had clean credit files now for around 12/18 months. I have built a good credit history using the likes of Vanquis etc. and now have some decent mainstream cards with good limits. All of this is a complete turnaround for me and I even have a small amount of savings for the first time in my adult life.

The one thing I have not been able to do is to get my own bank to give me one of their cards (Halifax), which I have to say has puzzled me as to why? Every application has been declined and following advice on this forum, I even checked to see if there was a CPD marker on my account but there wasn't!

So with nothing negative on my credit files (all 3 checked) and a lot of positive history, I decided to apply again and was declined. So I wrote an appeal letter. All I expected to be honest was the standard, "we can't tell you, check your credit files" letter. Instead they sent me an offer of a card with a £3k start limit and I needed to go through telephone banking or in branch to re apply!

I went in to my branch last week and they completely reviewed my accounts with them and most likely found the reason I was being turned down, which looking back was obvious but I missed it!

My money is paid into my old Easycash Account, not the reward account. I transfer over what is mine to spend each month and use the Easycash for paying bills from. It turns out that this looked as though I had zero income as Easycash is not reported to the CRA's and even though it was my own bank the lady I saw seemed to think it was probably the main reason for the declines. So they converted that into a standard Current Account and that should help for the future as well. As for the CC I took the 19 month BT & 16 months 0% purchase card.

So it does go to show that appealing a decision can be worth the effort, if you know you have a clean file with no adverse history.

InsideInsurance

CRAs, to the best of my knowledge, only show debt and so no income ever shows there short of you paying off any overdraft that is being used each month. If you never use your overdraft nothing is ever shown. If you only use £100 a month then only you repaying the £100 a month shows irrespective of if your monthly income is £150 or £8,000

Most the time its just the difference between a machine and a person reviewing an application or on multiple appeals then the difference of two underwriters. BarclayCard declined me last year, appealed and they gave a £8k limit

m00se1986

I believe this is a known issue with Halifax, I am sure there are old posts about the same. Holding an Easycash account seems to automatically causes a decline. I believe this is an internal policy and has nothing to do with any data provided by the CRAs.

A friend of mine was recently in the exact same situation, he was first declined outright but after Halifax converted his account to a Reward account he applied a few months later and was approved for the Clarity card at 12.9% (the lowest band) with a £3500 limit despite having a relatively low income.

Next time you check your files with the CRAs it would be interesting to see if they even performed a credit search the last time you were declined.

Simon7685

That is really interesting, the person I saw in branch was very keen on converting the Easycash to a normal current account before doing anything else.

I have also checked back on search records for Callcredit and there is nothing from Halifax in the last 12 months despite me having applied during that time.

I guess the acid test maybe looking to add the Clarity card later this year, maybe September/October time and see what happens.

giblet10

Yep, I was the one who shared my own similar success story last year.

I had a great relationship with Halifax, mortgage, funded card cash account, saving etc. But had applied for a Clarity card six times in two years - each time it declined in seconds and nothing was recorded at any of the CRAs.

So, I went to my local branch who were very switched on with it all. They informed me that if a customer has any type of basic bank account such as easy cash, card cash etc that credit cards are a big no no and the system will simply decline before going out to CRAs.

The branch upgraded me to the reward account, I did another Clarity application when I got home and hey presto, approved with £8k limit.

So the golden rule is never, never, apply for a credit card with Halifax if you have any form of basic bank account with them.

Kim_13

Thanks for sharing your story.

Just shows how bizarre it is that they would approve you for a mortgage with a cash account but not a credit card.

Simon7685

It is completely bizarre and probably affecting a lot of people who like me have been sat scratching their head wondering why you can get other cards but not one from your own bank!

My new card arrived yesterday and is set to go, 19 months 0% on BT and 16 months 0% on purchases, all thanks to a letter questioning their refusal.

Candyapple

I had this problem too with Halifax. I had been with them for at least a decade and my salary used to be paid into the account which was always in credit but whenever I applied for one of their credit cards, was always declined. One day I went into the branch to pay in some cash and the cashier asked if I wanted a card and I explained all the previous instances of being declined and she called over a personal banker and we went through the application in-branch and she said the problem was that because I was being paid from my employers by cheque (old fashioned company), their system didn't recognise this as a salary credit and as such it would always be an instant decline.

Several months later when my employers finally got with the times, as soon as 1 month's salary had hit my account I didn't even need to do anything as on my online banking page it had a guaranteed acceptance for one of their credit cards and I just clicked through and was accepted.

Simon7685

When I went into the branch last week with my letter, the lady said that because my money went into the Easycash account it looked like I had no income. I thought she meant with the CRA's which I put in my intitial post in error........ I'll call that a senior moment lol.

Obviously she meant because their computer system does not count the Easycash as a bank account as such and ignores it when assessing criteria. So I guess when I appealed and a human actually looked at things, they would have seen that money was going in every month.

Maybe they need to address this, as I bet loads of people have the same issue and from the banks point of view they are possibly losing a lot of money every year by customers not having their cards.

stclair

Their was a poster on here awhile who worked for the Halifax in a specialist department. They previous stated that the system has a rule within it to decline credit applications when a customer has a basic account.