Why won't they increase my credit limit?

mcpitman

amy1695 wrote: »

So why did they reject me when I applied for a credit limit increase?

Because you are and have a history of poor financial management

Money_Rollercoaster

amy1695 wrote: »

I pay most off before my statement but leave some on there, about £20 or so just so they make some money off me. I thought if they weren't making money off me then they wouldn't want me to have more credit. So I do pay them about £3 per month.

The whole idea of a credit builder card is that you use it to demonstrate you can manage credit and you're supposed to use them regularly but pay them off in full every month. Even if you clear the account monthly and don't pay a penny in interest, they are making money - the people you shop with are paying transaction fees on your expenditure. You don't need to compensate them for giving you a card.

zippygeorgeandben

With this reasoning I'll lend you money and you pay me a 'gratitude' fee!

Rothstein

Superscrooge wrote: »

By failing to clear your balance and paying £3 interest each month, you create the impression of struggling to make repayments on a £200 credit limit.

This together with a recent CCJ will make you look high risk and less likely to be offered a higher credit limit.

Clear your statement balance in full each month

This is completely wrong and simply bad advice in my experience................

PeacefulWaters

Rothstein wrote: »

This is completely wrong and simply bad advice in my experience................

It's spot on in my experience.

Rothstein

Well if I agreed with you, we would both be wrong !


Running cards up to the limit and paying SOME still gets you a credit increase, paying it off in full is a myth, get with the program !!

CakeCrusader

Maybe it depends on the card. I had a Vanquis, never went over the limit, I never maxed it out (I usually left 25% of the available balance), always paid more than the minimum (usually 2 or 3 times), but I didn't clear it every month either and they kept increasing it every 6 months. By the time I did a BT (to a 0% card) the limit was 2.5k, but I wish I'd have tried to do a BT a lot earlier than I did. I don't recommend this, the interest rate is really bad and I dread to think how much I've paid to them. I suspect the poor credit cards like Vanquis are just looking at how much money they can make out of people, so they don't like it when a card is cleared or almost cleared every month. I may be wrong though.

If I were you, I wouldn't be trying to increase the amount of credit available, I'd concentrate on trying to clean up my credit file so that you can ditch your card and look for one with a lower interest rate in the future.

PeacefulWaters

Rothstein wrote: »

Well if I agreed with you, we would both be wrong !


Running cards up to the limit and paying SOME still gets you a credit increase, paying it off in full is a myth, get with the program !!

I've held credit cards for 31 years. I started with a £250 limit. I've never paid a penny in interest. Earned well over £2,000 in cashback, £2,500 in points towards a new Vauxhall Corsa for the wife of the day, airmiles coming out of my ears and currently have credit limits exceeding £60,000.

My "program" does fine. But then I'm playing a mainstream game.

CakeCrusader

PeacefulWaters wrote: »

I've held credit cards for 31 years. I started with a £250 limit. I've never paid a penny in interest. Earned well over £2,000 in cashback, £2,500 in points towards a new Vauxhall Corsa for the wife of the day, airmiles coming out of my ears and currently have credit limits exceeding £60,000.

My "program" does fine. But then I'm playing a mainstream game.

This has to depend on the type of credit card that you have. The 'poor credit' credit cards don't work in the same way as the ordinary ones.

PeacefulWaters

CakeCrusader wrote: »

This has to depend on the type of credit card that you have. The 'poor credit' credit cards don't work in the same way as the ordinary ones.

If the objective of the game is to get as big a credit limit as possible and pay 49.9% interest on a running balance against that limit fair enough. In my mind that's an utterly stupid thing to do.

If the objective is to use card, clear balance, pay no interest and build up a credit history that makes a mainstream issuer say "we'll take you" then that's sensible.