Have I reached my Credit Limit for BT'ing?

Towen_2

Debit / income ratio is not as important as;

1. CII is based on your disposable income
2. Experian estimate your disposable income from public data and credit agreement they hold. Therefore they could under or estimate your actual income by quite a bit.

I do not know they the precise methodology, but I think they use demo-geographic and lifestyle (e.g. mosaic) type data.

The tricks Reaper is playing will make Experian think he has more disposal income than if they knew about all his credit cards (and in-fact he had because he is funding most of his credit commitments from his stooze pot! :rotfl: ).

Grumpy_Old_Duffer

YorkshireBoy wrote:

My stoozing ratio is 1.9 and available credit is 2.3

Uuummph!!!:( I'd like to try and get up to that figure!!!
Where does one find one's "available Credit"?

The Cards I have are :-
Virgin
Egg
Halifax
M&S
Unison
CapitalOne

How do you select Cards that ".... do not report to the CRAs or carefully picking those which only report/query with Equifax or Experian alone", and any ideas which one(s) I ought to try?

YorkshireBoy

Grumpy_Old_Duffer wrote:

Uuummph!!! I'd like to try and get up to that figure!!!"?

I had a little good fortune along the way See my "Am I lucky, or what?" thread from last weekend.

Grumpy_Old_Duffer wrote:

Where does one find one's "available Credit"?

Stoozing "debt" + current account agreed overdraft limit + current account provider Mastercard (day to day spending credit card).

Grumpy_Old_Duffer wrote:

How do you select Cards that ".... do not report to the CRAs...

This got my attention as well!

ti1980

My HSBC card has never reported to either of the CRA's. I don't know if this is because I have an account with them that my wages go in though.

cronshd

YorkshireBoy wrote:

My stoozing ratio is 1.9

Wow! I've never seen one as big as that before. (As the actress said to the MSExpert).

---

Reaper

Grumpy_Old_Duffer wrote:

How do you select Cards that ".... do not report to the CRAs or carefully picking those which only report/query with Equifax or Experian alone", and any ideas which one(s) I ought to try?

It's harder than it used to be as credit card companies are improving their reporting, but here's the theory...

Some companies don't like reporting to the CRAs because they feel they are putting commercially useful information into the hands of their competitors. The two main ones have been LLoyds and HSBC who did not always report. Instead they only reported if you missed a payment. Until that happend they kept quiet.

This is not necessarily a good thing - there have been some upset LLoyds customers in the past who discovered they had no credit rating because LLoyds had been failing to tell the CRAs about their perfect repayment histories!

Anyway, LLoyds seem to be reporting to the CRAs much more now and my LLoyds card does show up. However First Direct (part of HSBC) have never reported either of the cards I have had with them. Very useful since they gave me a £25k credit limit each time!

It probably makes a difference whether you are an existing bank customer or not, but I can't say for sure.

As for the other trick of going for companies which just use one CRA, I suggest you look at this useful thread.

geoffd50

I'm intrigued by this thread too. And I think there has to be another explanation to acceptance/rejection.

I'm also amazed by some of the 'telephone' numbers being tossed around as to how big a stooze pot some people have - how do you do it ?

I've done a bit of stoozing - up to about 20k on three or four cards, but right now, I'm having to pay them off as I can't get any more cards to BT with. I've had two applications turned down and I don't want any more 'failures' on my record. I can't even get a 0% card to use for purchases.

My last application was to Sainsburys, and it was rejected so I appealed. I actually got to speak to a human being who upheld the rejection on the grounds that I had "too much debt" - currently about 15k. I pointed out that I have never defaulted, only to be told that that isn't necessarily the criterion - it's the judgement as to whether I might ! And in this area there are it seems, no rules.

So, while I have a perfect payment record, have never had more than five or six cards on the go (including purchases and foreign fee-free use), have never had debt levels anywhere near equal to my income and have no other debts like mortgages or car loans, my stoozing days are over. And I don't really understand why. I don't believe Sainsburys, and I'm way behind the likes of YB - so what's the reason ?

A friend of mine reckons it's like the insurance market - if it's a slow day/week/month, then good deals are available. If the troops have all met their targets, then even marginal bad risk is not accepted. I think he's right - it's not debt ratio, science or demographic mumbo jumbo - it's good old fashioned luck.

Any opinions ?

cronshd

Just on the Sainsbury's rejection - I too was rejected. I felt it was wrong, but then I realised I wasn't in their 'cheap and cheerful' market segment.

Subsequently accepted for 2 other cards - no problem.

Mrs cronshd was accepted for a Sainsbury's card, even though she is a student - and has 3 other cards.

(Btw - the Sainsbury's rejection may be a blessing in disguise - see my previous post about Bizarre Security Questions).

modu

Msg to reaper ! which cards are these that you use ? I hope you dont think I'm forward !