Credit cards for no income 24 November 2022 at 1:13PM in Credit cards 2 replies 284 views

Spondulics

Hi,
Does anyone know of any credit cards for no income?
I was made redundant in the pandemic and am currently living off redundancy and inheritance. I have tried the calculators on the MSE site and am not eligible for anything with £0 income, even though I have had a £10K limit mastercard all this time, only closed now as John Lewis are changing provider. (Double whammy as this was also my employer, Grrrr)
Any card would be paid off in full each month but it seems nothing is available for £0 income. I read mention of Amazon credit card in the forum but this is closing and moving to New Day Pulse by invitation only so not an option.
Can anyone help with any zero income credit card providers so I can be more secure when making Xmas purchases online by not using a bank debit card?

Thanks for any help for this newbie.

Ebe_Scrooge

In a word, no.  With no income, you'll struggle to get any credit card - savings (i.e. redundancy & inheritance) are not taken into account when calculating your eligibility.

Are you receiving any benefits?  These can legitimately be declared as income as long as they're a regular source of income.

If it's purely for making online purchases, do you have a trusted family member who can make the purchases on your behalf and then you pay them back?  Or even, you give them the money in advance and ask them to buy the stuff for you?

Having said that, a debit card does give a fair amount of protection in its own right.  Sure, you don't have the added benefit of S75 - but you do have the option of Chargeback, and any fraudulent transactions will, in almost all cases, be refunded by your bank.

WillPS

You will probably struggle to find a mainstream product which will approve an application with 0 income. Depending how large your inheritance was you might find your bank is more willing to lend - other lenders won't know your credit balance.

Depending how much you want a credit card you could take a job, potentially any old job, apply based on that income and then bin off the job once you have been successful. Seems a little extreme, and some lenders ask you to state that there is no reason you're aware of that your income might decrease in the short term or similar.