MSE credit club card eligibility calculation faulty

chipmsef

I was looking for a credit card with a long 0% interest rate on purchases.
MSE news bulletins would often highlight the Barclaycard Platinum as a top card for this, but the Credit Club was telling me that I wasn't eligible.
Eventually, I decided to apply anyway and, lo and behold, was accepted immediately for the full term 0%, and a cracking credit limit!
I gave the same information to Barclaycard about income, etc. that I had to the MSE Credit Club, so I would suggest that your eligibility "algorithm" (or whatever) is faulty.
Has anyone else experienced a similar scenario?

WillPS

It's a guesstimate. Only the banks will know definitively who they will and wont accept, and they wont be sharing their proprietary (and regularly changing) algorithms with aggregators like MSE Credit Club.

Ebe_Scrooge

chipmsef said:

Has anyone else experienced a similar scenario?

Yes, lots of people.

chipmsef said:

 so I would suggest that your eligibility "algorithm" (or whatever) is faulty.

A 3rd-party generic calculator is, at best, a very rough indication of your eligibility, based on common factors.  It cannot possibly know what specific criteria a particular lender uses - not least because those criteria are confidential and commercially-sensitive.

cymruchris

chipmsef said:

I was looking for a credit card with a long 0% interest rate on purchases.
MSE news bulletins would often highlight the Barclaycard Platinum as a top card for this, but the Credit Club was telling me that I wasn't eligible.
Eventually, I decided to apply anyway and, lo and behold, was accepted immediately for the full term 0%, and a cracking credit limit!
I gave the same information to Barclaycard about income, etc. that I had to the MSE Credit Club, so I would suggest that your eligibility "algorithm" (or whatever) is faulty.
Has anyone else experienced a similar scenario?

Yes - which is why I always say check eligibility directly on card providers websites rather than comparison sites. The comparison site uses their own pool of data, trying to match you up using your circumstances against similar customers who have/haven't had a card granted. The card provider however will be looking at your own personal data, and matching it up against their own internal criteria that the comparison sites aren't privy to. I've had eligibility showing as 0 percent on comparison sites, but approved on card providers own sites, and many others have too, 

DullGreyGuy

Ebe_Scrooge said:
A 3rd-party generic calculator is, at best, a very rough indication of your eligibility, based on common factors.  It cannot possibly know what specific criteria a particular lender uses - not least because those criteria are confidential and commercially-sensitive.

Some companies have gotten into bed with lenders much more than MSE... ClearScore for example have guaranteed acceptance and guaranteed limit with some lenders. Sure if you read the small print it states it is ultimate subject to final checks however the times we've used it we've been given exactly what the site said. 

There is a lot less commercial sensitivity sharing information with someone who'll never be your competitor