0% spending credit cards

dreilly13

Advice please. My current introductory 0% spending credit card is about to expire. I have had it for 18 months and never missed a payment. I have just paid off the full o/s balance, and intend to close the account when I have sourced a new spending 0% card. I have had 0% spending credit cards for the past 20 years, never missed payments, and always cleared the o/s balance before the expiry period. I have then always closed the accounts, so only ever hold one active CC at any time. None of my personal circumstances have changed in the last 18 months (and beyond), i.e. I am fortunate enough to be employed full time in the same occupation for 24 years and am not at risk of redundancy; my income has not dropped; I have lived at my current address for 7 years. I have, however, 'missed' 3 payments on an ID Mobile monthly SIM-only contract taken out on behalf of my daughter (a child) in January this year. We transferred to another network provider which gave her much more more data for not much more money, and I cancelled the DD to ID Mobile; unfortunately at the time I forgot to cancel my a/c with ID Mobile. I have since cancelled it, however I owed them 3 months (£15) on the contract. I did contact them via on-line chat during lock-down, but not all their systems were functioning hence they could only access basic information. In the meantime they passed my account onto a debt collection agency (CARS). I did fight it at first, my argument being that yes, my fault for not cancelling the contract with ID Mobile, but that no transactions had occurred on the account since changing provider, it was an oversight on my part, could they not waive it. In the end I got nowhere, so paid the £15 a couple of days ago.

The issue is, for the first time ever, according to all the 'soft' searches I have done, I am not eligible for an introductory 0% spending CC. On checking my Experian credit file, my credit score has decreased to 955, and I am shown as having 3 missed payments on the ID Mobile account.

If I apply for a 0% spending CC and am (as I now expect to be) refused, I believe that this information will be known to other CC providers and adversely affect any future applications. 

Does anyone have any advice as to how I can rectify this situation, or is it a case of just having to wait a few months until my credit score increases? 

[Deleted User]

None of that is particularly accurate.

Rejections won't be show on your files and therefore not visible to lenders.

And although your credit score is high, no one will ever see it as it's not a factor used in lending.

Time will improve your files, so if rejected now, try again in a couple of months.

Sandtree

They’ll see you applied and in time will see no new card appears... they can’t tell if it was a rejection, unfavourable terms or some other reason why an account wasn’t opened.

lenders are tightening things up at the moment, not surprising. One card only could work against you with some lenders

msallen

I suspect that seeing from your credit history (note "history", score means nothing) that you've enjoyed 0% spending for 20 years and never paid a penny in interest or fees to any card provider won't put you right at the front of the most desirable customer queue either!

dreilly13

Thanks all for your replies. Will wait a few weeks before re-assessing and hope the passage of time will improve my chances.