Credit score jargon and such like

kmredfan

Hi,

I am 37 and have never had any credit of any sort or even a basic bank account due to schizophrenia . However touch wood the last 18 months have been great for me, no relapses into hopsitals and am in the process of working with the care team helping people who were in my position and felt they had no way out. Anyway I am ranting lol force of habit

I opened an Halifax bank account around 6 months ago (1st ever bank account lol)
Last night I decided to look at my Experian credit report and their explanations go way above my head, so hoping for answers that I may be able to understand. I applied for a credit card off experians own Creditmatcher which gave a 9/10 success rate, This application got refused and I now want to know why or at least understand so I can ensure any mistake on my part won't be made again.

I have read it can be very bad for your score if you apply for many types of credit over a short amount of time so I won't be doing that at all.

Here are my experian details :- (nothing to show personal information)

Your Score - 905 out of 999 - You are 56 points away from a Excellent score

What's affecting your Experian Credit Report and Score - 2 positive and 2 negative (haven't a clue what any of it means)

Positives are :-

1) Your total non-mortgage credit balance is £0.00

2) You are using 1 non-mortgage credit account

Now onto the negatives

1)You have no settled non-mail order credit accounts. (what on earth does that mean???)

2)The average age of your credit accounts is 5 months.

be gentle with me if I have made an error and thanks for reading, onwards and upwards

[Deleted User]

Don't worry about the Experian advice.

Do you have a credit card at all? This is the best way of building up a good credit history. Try a sub prime lender or your own bank - use regularly and pay in full.

All you need is to use it regularly and responsibly and time will do the rest.

kmredfan

No credit card at all That is what I applied for on the advice of Creditmatcher which is part of experian and had a 90% success rate which failed lol. Only reason I want a credit card is to actually improve my rating, but reluctant to apply for any new ones as it can have an adverse effect on your ability to get one? I will wait 6-12 months and try again

You're right about experian I find them useless. I was buzzing when I saw I had a 905 credit score, zero debt, zero CCJ, zero blacklist of any kind. So I am guessing the score is pretty irrelevant to financial companies by the large, just like me using them for a monthly fee of £14.95 which has thus been cancelled.

Thanks for the reply

[Deleted User]

Have one more try with someone like aqua or Vanquis. Two applications isn't a big deal. If that one is declined, try again in 3 months.

m4rc

Good advice from zx81, try those or Barclaycard initial, capital one is another option but I've not found them to be so friendly.

Just be aware Vanquis may want to call you to run through a couple of checks, not sure if you would be OK with that, if not avoid them. It's nothing bad, they like to check you are a real person and will confirm the details you put into your application - I guess some stupid people make something up, forget what they put and then it's obvious they lied.

Don't worry about the Experian stuff, it's just there to get money out of you really, you've checked there is nothing bad like a fraudulent account in your name, just try to get a credit card and spend carefully, pay it all off paying as little interest as possible and you will find everyone wants to give you a credit card!

Good luck

kmredfan

Deleted_User wrote: »

Have one more try with someone like aqua or Vanquis. Two applications isn't a big deal. If that one is declined, try again in 3 months.

Thanks so much mate, my first application was with Aqua who said no straight away, I them went for your advice and decided to go with Capital one and got accepted with a £200 limit which is basically all I wanted.

My credit rating dropped to 899 with Equifax which I aint too worrieed about.

Now to improve my rating am I right in thinking if I buy say my food shopping on the credit card and them pay the credit card off on the 1st or 2nd day will help improve my credit reliability? And what costs am I looking at for paying my credit card bill off so quickly? Any early payment penalisation?

Thanks again for your help I would never have applied if it wasn't for your post.

Candyapple

kmredfan wrote: »

Thanks so much mate, my first application was with Aqua who said no straight away, I them went for your advice and decided to go with Capital one and got accepted with a £200 limit which is basically all I wanted.

My credit rating dropped to 899 with Equifax which I aint too worrieed about.

Now to improve my rating am I right in thinking if I buy say my food shopping on the credit card and them pay the credit card off on the 1st or 2nd day will help improve my credit reliability? And what costs am I looking at for paying my credit card bill off so quickly? Any early payment penalisation?

Thanks again for your help I would never have applied if it wasn't for your post.

What you want to do is set up a direct debit to clear the full balance monthly. That way you can do your shopping, just make sure you put the money aside in your bank account and don't touch it until the DD is taken.

Reason for doing it this way is because if you bought some shopping say for £50 today and then paid it off 2 days later, because you cleared the balance before a statement was produced, it will get reported to the credit reference agencies as though you never used the card, thus instead of lots of green zeros (shows you have been using credit responsibly) you will probably end up with lots of green 'U's (usually means unknown balance, unused account).

I just read your post again where you said you don't have a bank account. That is the next thing you need to tackle:
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/banking/2015/12/nine-banks-to-offer-fee-free-basic-accounts-in-the-new-year

[Deleted User]

Good news.

Yes - just do your normal shopping on it. When your statement comes in, pay in full before the due date. Don't pay it until you've got your statement.

There'll be no fees or extras.

Not_skint_anymore.

Candyapple wrote: »

Reason for doing it this way is because if you bought some shopping say for £50 today and then paid it off 2 days later, because you cleared the balance before a statement was produced, it will get reported to the credit reference agencies as though you never used the card, thus instead of lots of green zeros (shows you have been using credit responsibly) you will probably end up with lots of green 'U's (usually means unknown balance, unused account).

That's not true, I used my Initial card a lot when I got it, the limit was £400 but I regularly spent over £1000 a month on it and made multiple payments each month, the info on Equifax from Barclaycard showed (for example) Credit limit £400, statement balance £15, payment amount £835. They quickly raised the limit after 6 months and then again last month. So even if you pay before the statement arrives, they won't show just zero amounts, they'll show how much you've paid.