MSE guide: Getting your first credit card

MSE_Laura_F

A new MSE guide is live:

💳 Getting your first credit card 💳

Includes:

• What to consider before choosing
• Am I eligible? 
• Applying for your first credit card 
• How best to use your first credit card 
• What to do if your application is rejected
  ...and more.

CliveOfIndia

That's a very useful guide for people unfamiliar with credit cards.  I hope you will not mind me making a couple of observations?

Firstly, please could you correct the references to "credit score".  The credit score issued by the CRAs has no bearing whatsoever on your ability to obtain credit, seeing as how a lender cannot even see that score.  Lenders take the data contained in your credit file and use that to determine their own internal score, which no-one except the lender themselves can see.  A few lenders will use a score generated by the CRAs, but even then it's tailored to the lender's particular criteria, and will be very different from the blanket score seen when you view your credit report.

Secondly, in the section titled "How best to use your first credit card" is states "Do make the minimum monthly repayments. Better still, pay off as much as you can afford to, to avoid paying unnecessary interest."  I would argue that as a first-time credit card user (well, as any credit card user, really), you should be encouraged to always repay in full every month - both to avoid paying interest, and to build up a solid credit history.  Perhaps this could be re-worded to say that you really should pay off the full balance every month - and only in extreme circumstances pay less than that, but always pay at least the minimum, no matter what.

Sorry, that's probably not a very elegant way of putting it!  But hopefully you get my meaning.  And I hope this doesn't come across as criticism, it's intended as constructive input.

WillPS

@MSE_Laura_F

The phrase "Almost all credit card companies won't lend to anyone under 18, though for some the limit is even higher." implies there is at least one credit card company who would lend to someone under 18 - which there isn't (and would be illegal under the Consumer Credit Act surely?).

It'd be great if you could reword the references to "your score" to prevent conflation of the score which you present via MSE Credit Club with the internal credit score which banks use. We get a lot of people on here who don't seem to understand that a "perfect score" on Experian does not mean anything to a lender. I appreciate there's a line to tread on this, but it's unhelpful to conflate.