WARNING! Hard Credit File Search by Barclaycard

worldlad909

This is a warning that Barclaycard promise a free credit card eligibility checker which they promise does not harm your credit file. However, you complete a few simple questions you then click CHECK NOW and a few days later you check your credit file to see they have done a hard search, thanks to this I have now lost 16 points on my Clear Score credit file.

This is the page I completed and found how much it hurt my credit file:

https://letmechoose.barclaycard.co.uk/?source=productpages&TC=GOS0000001

It's now going to take my 2.5 months to get those points back. Thanks Barclays!

System

Credit scores are meaningless, nobody uses them, none of the lenders use them. They're as much use as a chocolate teapot. At the same time Experian put mine up to the max 999 Clearscore dropped mine by 80 points.

It is what is in your credit history that counts, not what some random number is. The sooner you learn that credit scores are worthless the better your life will be.

[Deleted User]

Give them £20 and they will sell you 50 points.

stuart30

Deleted_User wrote: »

Give them £20 and they will sell you 50 points.

Give me £20 and i"ll sell you my mother (RIP !!!!!! mother)...:D:D

SnowTiger

worldlad909 wrote: »

This is a warning that Barclaycard promise a free credit card eligibility checker which they promise does not harm your credit file. However, you complete a few simple questions you then click CHECK NOW and a few days later you check your credit file to see they have done a hard search...

Are you sure it's a hard search? What does the entry on your credit report say?

forgotmyname

Do tell us how it hurt your file?? Did Barclays see your score? Will anyone but you and the company providing it ever see it?

I pay my credit card bill off on time every month and my "score" dropped. Its a useless number.

Which lender penalises customers for paying bills on time?

Ben8282

I used the Barclaycard eligibility checker a while back. The result was a soft search on my Equifax report; nothing on Experian.
I do not believe that a hard search would have been carried out; the eligibility checker is simply not set up to do this.
Perhaps after you did the eligibility check you went on and actually made an application (which was declined?)? That is the most plausible explanation for what has happened.
Also, ignore the drop in the worthless score. Instead concentrate on the actual results of the eligibility check.

robber2

worldlad909 wrote: »

........... which they promise does not harm your credit file...........!

Thats not strictly true is it. "What they actually say does not harm your credit RATING".

As you don't have a personal credit rating its resonable to assume Barclays are referring to the rating THEY hold on you which I guess is not affected (but you will never know as they do not divulge such information).

Its unreasonable to think that Barclays could have any control over a random number generated by a 3rd party.



Rob

StopIt

Deleted_User wrote: »

Give them £20 and they will sell you 50 points.

stuart30 wrote: »

Give me £20 and i"ll sell you my mother (RIP !!!!!! mother)...:D:D

worldlad909 wrote: »

This is a warning that Barclaycard promise a free credit card eligibility checker which they promise does not harm your credit file. However, you complete a few simple questions you then click CHECK NOW and a few days later you check your credit file to see they have done a hard search, thanks to this I have now lost 16 points on my Clear Score credit file.

This is the page I completed and found how much it hurt my credit file:

https://letmechoose.barclaycard.co.uk/?source=productpages&TC=GOS0000001

It's now going to take my 2.5 months to get those points back. Thanks Barclays!

Give me £20 and I'll write to the above posters CRA reports telling them that they should be docked 16 points for being mean.


All of the above is about as useful as the credit score you're worried about, which is to say, useless.


Lenders look at your credit history, not your score, which one hard search is going to do very little either way.


My ClearScore has varied by over 100 points in the last year despite no major changes to my actual credit usage (Low, going lower every month aside from full paid credit card usage each month). I suddenly haven't went from having OK, to bad, to amazing credit risk during that time, which if I needed credit, would be the test, not whatever number the RNG of the CRA gives me.


For example. This month ClearScore kept my score the same, Noddle docked me near 20 points. Why? God only knows as nothing is on my file to suggest it.