What happened to our credit rating???!!!

Baking_Mad

Oops, sorry my husbands gross salary is about £41500

[Deleted User]

So £20,000 of credit cards with circa £14,000 in use.

This could be why

[Deleted User]

Agreed. He's looking fairly desperate for credit and highly-utilised on what he already has. That makes lenders nervous.

You need to work on bring the debts down to open up other options. Has he been making more than minimum payments?

Baking_Mad

No, we’ve been paying minimum payments on both cards.
The reason why Barclays has been going down faster is because their minimum payment is calculated differently to the Virgin one and the monthly minimum payment is substantially higher. OMG! That’s a scary prospect for the next foreseeable future then.
Do you think we should take out the 6 month Capital One with 0% or should we stay with Virgin and pay ridiculous interest? (Not even sure what it will be, I’ve still to check but my guess is close to 30%?! ������)

[Deleted User]

If you've already been offered the Cap One, I would take it - unless the standard rate on it is eye-wateringly high.

Use the breathing space to pay as much as you can off before the interest kicks in.

Also visit the DFW boards to get advice on cutting costs so that you can pay back quicker. You can't rely on shifting the debt around - at some point, it needs to be repaid.

Baking_Mad

We haven’t been offered it but it’s the only one that’s coming up as 100% guaranteed acceptance. One major issue with it that I see is that it goes up to 34% interest after the 6 month period. Totally understand and agree with what you are saying, need to get these balances down somehow

onlyfoolsandparking

Baking_Mad wrote: »

Credit card 1 with Virgin:

Balance £9157 Limit £10200 (this is the one with 0% ending in February and we desperately need to do balance transfer)

Credit Card 2 with Barclays:

Balance £5118 Limit £10000

Yes that Virgin balance is too close for comfort and with the deal running out that's gonna sting a bit, are Barclaycard not offering you anything currently, I can see your slightly over 50% utilisation but they usually give offers to existing customers regularly.


If the answer is no and if I were in your situation I would start lumping in on your Barclaycard as much as possible each month in the hope they will then offer you a deal and you've paid it down a fair bit, then you could move as much as your allowed from your Virgin and take some of that sting away.


Something for the future, always try and have at LEAST 2 empty cards preferably with companies that offer regular deals (MBNA springs to mind) so you can always move balances well before deals run out.

Baking_Mad

Yes Barclays did send us letters before Christmas offering a deal. This will be our first port of call, will phone them tomorrow morning and hope to get at least some of that Virgin balance transferred. Wish us luck please. I’ll come back tomorrow with an update.

onlyfoolsandparking

Baking_Mad wrote: »

Yes Barclays did send us letters before Christmas offering a deal. This will be our first port of call, will phone them tomorrow morning and hope to get at least some of that Virgin balance transferred. Wish us luck please. I’ll come back tomorrow with an update.

Are you not online with Barclaycard, if not you should be as you can see any deals they might be offering in a flash but good luck if you have to call

Chrysalis

I dont fully agree with the ignore score comments, they dont pluck the scores out of a hat randomly, so clearly there is stuff they do to generate the scores, I agree that the scores wont be used by lenders, however there is a possibility that the way scores are calculated may have some similarities to lenders. But we wont know either way. Because we wont know it is wrong to say scores are "completely meaningless".

However I agree on the basics of the advice which is to check your file on the CRA to see if its accurate.

Also bear in mind credit worthyness isnt just based on a good credit history but also affordability. So things like existing credit, utilised credit levels, and income all come into it as well.

Also lenders are tightening up, the criteria now is probably not the same as what it was 3+ years ago.

I am noticing it on the offers sent to me by my CC providers, I am still getting automated limit increases no problem, but the 0% deals are getting worse.