Tesco Credit Card (2022)

MysteryMan22

Hi all, new to the board but wanted to share my (mostly positive!) experience of applying credit card with Tesco Bank because when I last searched around many of the threads on this were quite old.

i dont have the most interstellar credit record, so I applied fully expecting to be turned away, but surprisingly the application went through. (It was for a 0% balance transfer card to move around £1k of interest accruing debt from a capital one card - which is less than half of the available credit, and I’ve made payments on another account on time regularly for 12+ months, for clarity)

Generally the experience has been fine and I’ve not got anything bad to say about it really besides a little frustration around the ID requirements - The worst part about the application is not being able to track it, so you don’t really know what’s happening - but the thing I really wanted to share with you all to save you all some hassle is the ID part.

its VERY stringent (and I’m not sure if all financial institutions now do this, or if it’s unique) in terms of the form and method of ID required. So they will ask you for a proof of ID, and a proof of address - pretty standard stuff, I.e. passport, driving license, utility bill - I used passport for my ID and driving license for my address.

the tricky part is the certification and how that needs to appear. The ID must be certified in the prescribed format as shown in the letter they’ll send you for the ID request, but the really important aspect they don’t mention is that your ID and certification MUST be on the same sheet of paper, and it MUST be on the same *side* of the piece of paper as the photocopy of your ID. (Note that driving license must be front AND back!) I learned this the hard way, twice - and it delayed my application by 3 weeks with going back and forth. 

The call centre customer service team were very nice though and we got it sorted, so I’m not whining, this is just a post for anyone else doing the same thing, to save you a lot of time and hassle - two forms of ID, certified by a professional, with the ID and the certification all on one side of one sheet of paper. 

Apparently the reason is because it’s all scanned in to a computer and it can only scan one side, so if you put it on the back side it won’t work. The instructions on the form were a little ambiguous - or I’m a bit daft (probably equal measures) but there we are - hope that helps somebody’s day get a little bit easier when applying for Tesco credit cards.

MysteryMan22

MysteryMan22 said:

Two forms of ID, certified by a professional, with the ID and the certification all on one side of one sheet of paper.

Sorry I should clarify this part - it needs to be your first form of ID, eg your passport, certified and scanned all on one side of one sheet of A4, fully visible and signed, then the next piece of ID on its own sheet with the certification all on *one* side - one separate sheet for each piece of ID. Bank statements need to show your FULL name and address, not an abbreviation.

Anyway hope that helps somebody, it’s a minefield! 

sleepyjones

I got a Tesco Credit Card in Feb (2022) and never had to do any of this ID check stuff.   I did apply through the TotallyMoney Credit report thing though, so I dunno if that had already confirmed my ID.