Any tips for applying for CC?

mrmajika

Willing2Learn wrote: »

The reality is that major lenders do not use or see the CRA-derived credit score. They score a borrower, independently, against their own criteria and policies using the data held in the credit files, added to the data submitted in a credit application, added to the data the lender may already hold on the borrower as an existing or returning customer. This means a lender comes up with their own score which determines their decision of whether to lend.

Absolutely. This is my own experience and thoughts.

Although there should surely be a rough correlation between the 2 scores.

[Deleted User]

mrmajika wrote: »

Although there should surely be a rough correlation between the 2 scores.

There is, for about half the population.

The problem is, the customer doesn't know which half they're in.

mrmajika

Deleted_User wrote: »

There is, for about half the population.

The problem is, the customer doesn't know which half they're in.

But, at the risk of somewhat derailing this thread, how do we know it's roughly 50% / 50% beyond limited anecdotal evidence posted on these forums?

[Deleted User]

That's just my rough estimate from a couple of decades of lending experience.

It's skewed of course by the portfolios I've managed, but the CRA scores use such a simplified scoring methodology, that it as good as useless. There's simply no a high enough rate of correlation.

System

I don't think you should apply for credit to be honest. It's not for everyone and hasn't been kind to you in the past.

gionnetto

jakeec wrote: »

Thank you all for the help! I did the Capital One eligibility check and they gave me 100% chance of being accepted, so I'll mull it over.

It's not a wise thing to do. When you use an eligibility checker, you need to move ahead right away with the application. The reason being, some lenders will refuse your application unless it's done right after their eligibility checker. Your best bet is to just use a generic eligibility checker, such as the MSE club one, see what you qualify for, then apply right away.

MisterBaxter

Sometimes running an eligibility checker in Private mode or after clearing all cookies and browsing history can yield slightly different results.

[Deleted User]

gionnetto wrote: »

It's not a wise thing to do. When you use an eligibility checker, you need to move ahead right away with the application. The reason being, some lenders will refuse your application unless it's done right after their eligibility checker. Your best bet is to just use a generic eligibility checker, such as the MSE club one, see what you qualify for, then apply right away.

Why would they do that?
It makes no business sense to do so.

And an eligibility checker is exactly that.

gionnetto

!!! wrote: »

Why would they do that?
It makes no business sense to do so.

And an eligibility checker is exactly that.

I don't know why they would, it makes no sense to me either. But Aqua does it.

gionnetto

mrmajika wrote: »

Certainly, when I worked with LTSB (albeit 12+ years ago now) there was an external CRA score pulled directly from Experian which graded each customer from A to G, with A being the best. There was then an internal risk band that used this external letter together with internal account conduct, resulting in a risk band between 1 and 9 being attributed to each customer, with 1 being the best.

I suspect most other financial institutions work in a similar fashion, however, I have no other knowledge of their internal workings.

They still do it! They basically pull the score and then tweak it according to their specific criteria. However, those criteria can be very different from one lender to another.