Refused a barclays interest free loan despite never being in debt

OxfordRob

I am really gobsmacked. I get around £40k a year from my job of over 26 years at the same company. I have no defaults to my name and have never gone overdrawn. I have a mobile phone db to O2 and another one with Smarty for my first son. Where it perhaps gets odd is that I have mortgage I share with my wife but the payments for that go from her account. In fact all the bills are from her account too. We share a Tesco credit card. 

Each month after being paid I transfer my share of the costs over to my wifes account for the bills and mortgage payment and our savings etc. I also pay my half of the credit card so that we clear that debt each month.

I have a life insurance payment go out but that is it. At the end of payday I am left with about £50 in my account as a buffer. 

I am considered a bad person to loan to yet my credit score is great. 

What can I do to improve this loanability? I feel especially annoyed in the fact I am not a wreckless spender yet the computer algorithms can't cope.

What can I do to make my self appear better? Do I just need to share a bank account? In this current situation I can just buy the phone outright but wanted to spread the cost as it was an interest free loan.

I am now also concerned that the refusal will affect my score more?

Any advise please?

MattMattMattUK

OxfordRob said:

I am really gobsmacked. I get around £40k a year from my job of over 26 years at the same company. I have no defaults to my name and have never gone overdrawn. I have a mobile phone db to O2 and another one with Smarty for my first son. Where it perhaps gets odd is that I have mortgage I share with my wife but the payments for that go from her account. In fact all the bills are from her account too. We share a Tesco credit card. 

Each month after being paid I transfer my share of the costs over to my wifes account for the bills and mortgage payment and our savings etc. I also pay my half of the credit card so that we clear that debt each month.

I have a life insurance payment go out but that is it. At the end of payday I am left with about £50 in my account as a buffer. 

I am considered a bad person to loan to yet my credit score is great. 

You are not "considered a bad person", you are an unquantified risk because you have almost no lending history. Your credit score is a pointless, made up number, bankrupts can have maximum scores and billionaires can have low scores, it is a construct designed to allow them to sell you finance products for which they receive commission. 

OxfordRob said:

What can I do to improve this loanability? I feel especially annoyed in the fact I am not a wreckless spender yet the computer algorithms can't cope.

What can I do to make my self appear better? Do I just need to share a bank account? In this current situation I can just buy the phone outright but wanted to spread the cost as it was an interest free loan.

I am now also concerned that the refusal will affect my score more?

Any advise please?

Ignore any change in your score, it changes whenever you do anything, as an example mine is lowered because I pay off my credit cards in full every month, where as they claim it would increase my "score" if I increase my utilisation to between one and twenty five percent. The algorithms can cope, they are returning a no based on your lack of borrowing history which means there is not enough information to establish if you are a good prospect or not. Your issue is lack of credit history, they cannot see if you are a good prospect because there is hardly anything on your credit file. You also have the issue that phones on credit are often the targets of fraudulent transactions, so that raises the risk profile. You may also be hitting an affordability issue if you only have £50 left at the end of the month that could indicate an affordability issue. 

Get a credit card and pay it off in full every month (ideally one with cashback so you get paid to use it), have an overdraft but do not use it, make sure you are on the electoral role etc.

TadleyBaggie

OxfordRob said:

We share a Tesco credit card. 

Who is named as the account holder, being an additional card holder doesn't help your credit history.

prettyandfluffy

Get a credit card in your own name, use it and pay it off in full every month.  This will provide evidence to future lenders that you are a good risk.

OxfordRob

Thanks all. I enrolled for 30 days free with CheckMyFile to get a more detailed overview and as I thought everything should be fine. Just falling between the cracks of a computer saying no and a human who could see that hang on that is not right. The Tesco credit card by the way has me as primary holder and wife second named. We use it for the tesco points and pay it off each month. I do have a Barclays credit card but never use it. I may just pay a couple of things on that every so often and pay that off to show I do exist

Richard1212

Nobody has mentioned that Banks are arrogant, fickle and with no sense of loyalty to the customers who pay their staff salaries and massive executive bonuses. You are not the "bad person" , Oxford Rob, in your all-too-familiar story ! You are just another person who works hard, earns a good salary and shows responsibility when dealing with your obligations to Barclays; but Barclays don't ever say "thank you".

400ixl

OxfordRob said:

The Tesco credit card by the way has me as primary holder and wife second named. We use it for the tesco points and pay it off each month. I do have a Barclays credit card but never use it. I may just pay a couple of things on that every so often and pay that off to show I do exist

When you say pay it off each month, is that before the statement is produced or after? If before it will always have a zero balance to the CRA's which essentially is no history.

Does the card also show up with all 3 credit reference agencies. I have a one credit card for example which does not report to any, but my other one reports to all 3.

[Deleted User]

Richard1212 said:

Nobody has mentioned that Banks are arrogant, fickle and with no sense of loyalty to the customers who pay their staff salaries and massive executive bonuses. You are not the "bad person" , Oxford Rob, in your all-too-familiar story ! You are just another person who works hard, earns a good salary and shows responsibility when dealing with your obligations to Barclays; but Barclays don't ever say "thank you".

They're a multi million pound business, of course they're not going to say 'thank you', they have customers worth billions who will be their core business - taking things down on a personal level is a waste of precious time and emotion.
Take the emotion out of it, life becomes far less anxious.