Struggling to open Current Accounts..

planteria

as a long-term stoozer i've had lots of credit cards, savings accounts and current accounts over the years.. currenly 10 current accounts that i've had for years. i have previously moved accounts to take advantage of introductory rates, promotions, incentives.. a couple of years ago i tried to open a fifth Halifax account, and was rejected. i've now just been rejected by Virgin Money too..
so, i've been trying to understand why. my 'score' is good, i use credit cards and continually repay spending by DD in full, and meet the minimum on my current 0% card by DD. i have never missed a payment for anything. however, a few years ago i made a claim against a former business associate that owed me a lot of money. he had been paying me back a few hundred each week by cheque, but then claimed that he didn't owe me the bulk of the money afterall. i took legal action, which after c18 months was successful and i was awarded my claim in full.
but.. several months into the case he claimed that some of the cheques i had been given by him had not been signed by him. this lead to us jointly appointing a hand writing expert who concluded that the cheques had indeed been signed by him. in preparation for the expert's analysis i requested copies of all of the cheques from Barclays, with whom i had banked the weekly cheques. my relationship manager was very helpful throughout the process, but Barclays then took the decision to close my account, and went on to decline to provide any information as to why.
if i login to CreditKarma there are no issues highlighted on my file, and i've never seen any at any stage. however, it has been indicated to me that there is an issue registered with CIFAS, and without explicitly telling me, they've let me know that it relates to the above.
so, what can i do about this? i certainly did not act fraudulently in any way. can i try to persuade Barclays to retract a CIFAS flag being applied to my file? is there another way to rectify it? and how long would such a flag remain on my file?
any help appreciated.

kaMelo

Firstly SAR CIFAS to see exactly what it says.
Only when you know what you are dealing with can you decide what to do about it.

colsten

https://www.cifas.org.uk/contact-us/subject-access-request/subject-access-request-form

Ed-1

planteria said:

as a long-term stoozer i've had lots of credit cards, savings accounts and current accounts over the years.. currenly 10 current accounts that i've had for years. i have previously moved accounts to take advantage of introductory rates, promotions, incentives.. a couple of years ago i tried to open a fifth Halifax account, and was rejected. i've now just been rejected by Virgin Money too..
so, i've been trying to understand why. my 'score' is good, i use credit cards and continually repay spending by DD in full, and meet the minimum on my current 0% card by DD. i have never missed a payment for anything. however, a few years ago i made a claim against a former business associate that owed me a lot of money. he had been paying me back a few hundred each week by cheque, but then claimed that he didn't owe me the bulk of the money afterall. i took legal action, which after c18 months was successful and i was awarded my claim in full.
but.. several months into the case he claimed that some of the cheques i had been given by him had not been signed by him. this lead to us jointly appointing a hand writing expert who concluded that the cheques had indeed been signed by him. in preparation for the expert's analysis i requested copies of all of the cheques from Barclays, with whom i had banked the weekly cheques. my relationship manager was very helpful throughout the process, but Barclays then took the decision to close my account, and went on to decline to provide any information as to why.
if i login to CreditKarma there are no issues highlighted on my file, and i've never seen any at any stage. however, it has been indicated to me that there is an issue registered with CIFAS, and without explicitly telling me, they've let me know that it relates to the above.
so, what can i do about this? i certainly did not act fraudulently in any way. can i try to persuade Barclays to retract a CIFAS flag being applied to my file? is there another way to rectify it? and how long would such a flag remain on my file?
any help appreciated.

Who told you that the decision to not offer you an account was down to CIFAS info? Halifax/Virgin?

It's important to realise that most of the CIFAS markers do not appear on credit files so you need to SAR as above.

jimjames

Opening a 5th Halifax account might be absolutely nothing to do with any marker, just that they won't let you open 5 accounts

Ed-1

jimjames said:

Opening a 5th Halifax account might be absolutely nothing to do with any marker, just that they won't let you open 5 accounts

They will let you open more than 5.

funkycredit

Ed-1 said:

jimjames said:

Opening a 5th Halifax account might be absolutely nothing to do with any marker, just that they won't let you open 5 accounts

They will let you open more than 5.

Rewards? I've got 3 but wondered if it's possible for more.  

Ed-1

funkycredit said:

Ed-1 said:

jimjames said:

Opening a 5th Halifax account might be absolutely nothing to do with any marker, just that they won't let you open 5 accounts

They will let you open more than 5.

Rewards? I've got 3 but wondered if it's possible for more.  

It was possible to do within online banking through opening 3 Current Accounts and then upgrading them to Rewards. The system let you open up to 3 Rewards and up to 3 Current Accounts at a time. Once the Current Accounts were upgraded to Rewards you could then open another 3 Current Accounts and upgrade them to Rewards. Unfortunately this particular loophole has been closed but there are other potential loopholes if you can bag yourself a separate profile...

kaMelo

Ed-1 said:

funkycredit said:

Ed-1 said:

jimjames said:

Opening a 5th Halifax account might be absolutely nothing to do with any marker, just that they won't let you open 5 accounts

They will let you open more than 5.

Rewards? I've got 3 but wondered if it's possible for more.  

It was possible to do within online banking through opening 3 Current Accounts and then upgrading them to Rewards. The system let you open up to 3 Rewards and up to 3 Current Accounts at a time. Once the Current Accounts were upgraded to Rewards you could then open another 3 Current Accounts and upgrade them to Rewards. Unfortunately this particular loophole has been closed but there are other potential loopholes if you can bag yourself a separate profile...

Completely off topic but I have to ask, do you get the rewards on all of those accounts?

Ed-1

kaMelo said:

Ed-1 said:

funkycredit said:

Ed-1 said:

jimjames said:

Opening a 5th Halifax account might be absolutely nothing to do with any marker, just that they won't let you open 5 accounts

They will let you open more than 5.

Rewards? I've got 3 but wondered if it's possible for more.  

It was possible to do within online banking through opening 3 Current Accounts and then upgrading them to Rewards. The system let you open up to 3 Rewards and up to 3 Current Accounts at a time. Once the Current Accounts were upgraded to Rewards you could then open another 3 Current Accounts and upgrade them to Rewards. Unfortunately this particular loophole has been closed but there are other potential loopholes if you can bag yourself a separate profile...

Completely off topic but I have to ask, do you get the rewards on all of those accounts?

Yes......

stclair

Try the TSB my brothers just opened an account with them and he has 21 defaults.