Stoozing impacting credit score

yellow218

Hiya.
My husband and I stooze.
Does anyone else have an experience of stoozing impacting their credit score?

According to MSE’s credit club my actual score is excellent 998, but apparently my affordability for more cards/loans is low and I am deemed to have low disposable income.

This surprises me. But I’ve now been declined a card. This has never happened before. And in realty the majority of my income is disposable.

I’m not really sure why it’s happened or what I can do to improve it. I assume it’s because the number of cards and total amount of ‘debt’ that is perceived , and that they’ve not taken into account the savings that offset that. I assume also that if the majority of cards are in my name, but savings equally split between me and hubby this is having an effect?

We are thinking of moving house so would want a good score for remortgaging. I assume the only way of improving my affordability rating would be to pay off the cards and start stoozing again once in the house?

[Deleted User]

All of the scores are made up and of little use. Lenders don't see or care about them, so always ignore them.

Lenders will see the debt, the promotional rate markers and make their own decisions. However, there will come a point when you are considered to have too much debt for your income. This varies dramatically by lender.

Your savings are not visible to lenders.

Nebulous2

I've posted my experience before.

Basically I borrowed over £30k I didn't need around two years ago - just because I could. My scores and affordability took a hit, but I didn't care because I didn't expect to need any more credit.

I was never turned down, but applied for a Tesco credit card and was offered a modest limit and a shorter 0% period than I expected.

Then I decided to buy a second home and needed a mortgage. I visited Nationwide, as they provided mortgages into retirement and were relaxed about funding another property. They ran the affordability checkers, with different levels of debt and told me I needed to reduce the debt to £10k.

I did that, a couple of months before applying and everything sailed through.

So yes, borrowed money will have real life effects. They are temporary though, and affordability is everything. Earn enough, with low enough outgoings and a lot of things are doable.

Ben8282

I believe your problem is being caused by the level of debt. Unfortunately, lenders have no way of knowing that you will actually be able to repay the 0% balances at the end of the 0% period. You don't say how much you have outstanding on the 0% cards but I think that y ou will need to repay some of it before making further applications.

Craig1981

sounds like your utilisation is quite high.

as others have said, they cannot see your savings, so if you have £20k savings, and 5 cards with £4k limit on each, and all running with balances at £3900, you using upwards of 90% of your credit

scores and ratings dont mean anything, its your history lenders are after, and utilisation percentages do play a role

hugheskevi

My experience with stoozing is that lenders take significantly different and unpredictable decisions in response to high levels of unsecured borrowing.

I typically have about £40-£50K of credit card debt at 0%, all on minimum payments. I have never missed a payment.

I have been rejected for new credit cards and at the same time been accepted for new cards with 5 figure card limits. I've also often been given very low limits. I've found some lenders are pretty consistent over many years in being willing to give good credit limits, eg, Barclaycard, Tesco, Virgin whilst others aren't worth approaching, eg, Post Office, Natwest, Royal Bank of Scotland.

When I remortgaged my house, Nationwide declined whilst my existing mortgage provider was fine to offer me anything. I'd researched in advance and was happy with a product from my own provider so this was okay and I wasn't especially surprised Nationwide rejected my application.

I usually apply for new cards about 2 to 3 times per year in addition to applying for any particularly good offers which may be about to be withdrawn, which allows time between credit searches. I often wait until new cards are showing on all my credit records with confirmation payments being received and everything else is fully up to date before applying for more cards.