Credit rebuilding cards- help please?

Violet*Star

Hi
I'm new here but hoping that someone might be able to help......?

When I was young and stupid I got into a lot of debt but managed to pull myself out of it and had a really good credit score for years. Everything was great and then in 2013/14 things took a bad turn and through various circumstances I ended up back in £6000 of debt, which I was struggling repaying, which I was in constant contact with my creditors about. Once I got myself back on my feet, I started paying it back through debt collection agencies but have 2 lovely defaults on my file. These are now over a year old and my debts are reducing and I'm hoping to clear them in full in a couple of months.

I want to start rebuilding my credit file to get my credit back to what it was. I was thinking about applying for a bad credit card to help to do this and have done the soft check credit search on the MSE site - it came back with a 60% chance of acceptance, which seems good but I'm worried about rejection.

Basically my question is do I apply and hope I don't get rejected or wait until it comes back saying 80-100% chance of acceptance?

Sorry for the massive post and thank you in advance for any help or opinions!

Anthorn

Not nearly so bad as I was back in 2008. The strength in your credit history is that the defaults are a year old and reducing. Note that it's not only credit cards that build a credit history. It's all credit such as catalogue mail order accounts, contract mobile phones, landline telephone and broadband, etc.

The drawback of applying for credit is that every application results in a credit search and three searches in a 6 month period is your limit. Go to MBNA and apply for one of their new credit builder cards and they will start with their eligibility check which won't harm your credit history. You might be lucky and get an offer. If that fails you will most likely be confined to sub-prime cards and in that you will be spoilt for choice.

Back in 2008 I had pre-paid thrust upon me and then from Secure Trust Bank and Cashplus through Santander, Vanquis and Aqua at 6-monthly intervals but it was a good 4 years before I got to Prime cards. I have to say though rather incredibly that I was at my happiest with pre-paid.

Superscrooge

You say you can clear your debts in a couple of months?

Nobody can say for certain what your chances of obtaining a credit card are. But if you can wait until you have cleared your debts before applying. Your chances of acceptance will definitely improve

Violet*Star

problem about applying with MBNA is they are one of the creditors I'm paying off :embarasse

Now reconsidering whether the 40% chance of rejection is not worth it and to just wait until I'm debt free and think again, maybe more sensible?

Anthorn

In sub-prime cards Capital One has its own eligibility check (soft search) as does Nationwide in Prime. Unless Nationwide has changed its application procedure you may have to check a box in the application form for a soft search. But overall, I don't like Nationwide but your experience of them might be different.

As you can probably tell I think its best to start rebuilding credit as early as possible. The view I take is you don't know if you'll be rejected until you get rejected. Good luck.