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

[Deleted User]

Chrysalis wrote: »

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.

They are meaningless.

As has been said before, people with a 999 score get refused for a £20 per month SIM only contract but those with a 300-400 score get accepted for a £300k+ mortgage.

Go figure...

Baking_Mad

Ok, so it seems all isn’t that bad. Turns out we can transfer some to Barclays and also thanks to whoever mentioned MBNA. I remembered that we used to have a credit card with them, went to check and the account is still active with a limit of 14K! Just updated the address with them and once the new card arrives will be arranging the balance transfer.
Thank you all for your help!
Now we just need to work hard to bring these balances down!

eskbanker

Baking_Mad wrote: »

thanks to whoever mentioned MBNA. I remembered that we used to have a credit card with them, went to check and the account is still active with a limit of 14K!

Just out of curiosity, was this card not visible when you checked Experian and Equifax yesterday? An additional £14K is actually quite significant in terms of both total credit available versus income and credit utilisation ratios....

Baking_Mad

Don’t think I saw it but I might be mistaking

Emily_Joy

It sounds like your credit history is a mess and needs to be sorted out as soon as possible, preferably within the next month. In addition, it sounds like you have a sequence of minimum payment markers, which is definitely a great concern to lenders. You should make sure that you pay, say, £15 more than a minimum every month on all cards you have.

onlyfoolsandparking

Baking_Mad wrote: »

Ok, so it seems all isn’t that bad. Turns out we can transfer some to Barclays and also thanks to whoever mentioned MBNA. I remembered that we used to have a credit card with them, went to check and the account is still active with a limit of 14K! Just updated the address with them and once the new card arrives will be arranging the balance transfer.
Thank you all for your help!
Now we just need to work hard to bring these balances down!

That's great news and it was me who mentioned MBNA:D


Looks like you have a good fighting chance at sorting this out now and staying on 0% interest as much as possible.


A little concerning you 'forgot' about your MBNA account but hey we all make errors, at least this particular error is well in your favour, you should now have the ability to shuffle debt around keeping interest at 0% and really helping you pay debt down.

Baking_Mad

Thank you so much again. I didn’t forget about MBNA, just assumed that because we moved balance from it elsewhere sometime ago the card would have been closed by now. Guess we are lucky that it’s not been closed! Will definitely pay a bit more than a minimum payment from now to try and improve things a bit.

Baking_Mad

Really good point re extra £15,
Thank you! It’s definitely a wake up call!!!

Chrysalis

!!! wrote: »

They are meaningless.

As has been said before, people with a 999 score get refused for a £20 per month SIM only contract but those with a 300-400 score get accepted for a £300k+ mortgage.

Go figure...

Except that doesnt prove anything either way.

There is people with a score of 999 that can get turned down, and there is people with a score of 50 that get turned down and of course people with a score of 999 that get accepted.

It doesnt prove they meaningless, and given I have worked for a CC company in the "applications department" I can tell you at the very least from how things worked in that company back then there was at least "some" similarities.

The thing is with scores, they dont mean anything on affordability, when you apply for a credit you essentially checked on two things, you checked on your credit history which is basically your ability to manage credit, but also your affordability, scoring by the agencies usually tries to guesstimate the former, but nothing on the latter.

When you apply for any given card, they will use their own internal scoring system, it is entirely possible you will come out perfect on that scoring system and still get turned down? why? because you may have a huge amount of existing debt that makes the affordability poor. Credit applications are not simple.

However even tho they not simple and even tho the agencies scoring has no relation to affordability whatsoever no one can make a valid claim that the algorithm,s used for these scores are meaningless. You can only make such a claim if you know exactly how the scores work internally for the CC companies and know for sure that there is not one single metric in common.

As for mortgages they an entirely different beast and I am not talking about those.

Also isnt it amusing that barclaycard are in some way endorsing an agency by printing your score on that agency for their customers in their online account section? So they endorsing an agency thats doing something completely meaningless in your book.

If there was odds for it I would bet that more people with score of 999 get accepted than people with a score of 50 with at least a 70% in favour cut, would you bet against that?

Rockye

Why dont you check the CRA's