Nationwide B.S***

goldwing_2

My wife and I travel extensively (by motorcycle within Europe, and by air, Intercontinental).

Upon Martin's advice, we moved our 'Travelling Money' account to Nationwide in order to take advantage of their no-load ATM and Credit Card charge.

We always pay ALL our bills in full each month, and have done for the past thirty years. We have no orders against us (CCJ or otherwise).

We have applied to Nationwide four times for a CCard and, each time they have refused us, without reason.

I have four other other CCards, but ONLY use the AA card in order to use the 'Points' against my car and house contents insurance. The rest are zero-balance (signed-up at airports only to get rid of the tout offering a free digital camera).

We have no debts, have never had any debts, so, what's special about Nationwide?

It's time to move on, who do we move to?

Thanks
Tony & Cath.

Cardew

Presumably you have checked with the Credit Reference Agencies that they have nothing 'on' you?

pin

The fact that you applied four times may have raised issues. Have you tried getting a current account.

Chris25

We were refused once and couldn't understand why - we contacted the credit agency and discovered that we had 3 'hits' (credit checks) against us.
One was for opening a store card and the other two were for increasing the credit limits on our existing cc's before going on holiday.
As this all happened within four days, the computer had thrown up our names as possible bad credit ratings and the assistant told us that if we had opened the store account a month later, we wouldn't have had that third, important hit against our names.

markmat

goldwing wrote:

The rest are zero-balance (signed-up at airports only to get rid of the tout offering a free digital camera).

If you don't use these have you considered closing them down? Otherwise they're all going to show up as available credit on your file.

Having said that, I already have a Flexaccount and they rejected me for a credit card when I applied online. When I queried this I was told that they would only have done a credit check after accepting me through the online application. So we applied in my girlfriends name and it went through first time. Have you tried applying in your wife's name instead?

Woby_Tide

they also say on the online application that you shouldn't have applied before to them within the last 6 months if you are applying again. If you did them to close together it may have flagged up this?

mcivord

Sorry, I'm a bit confused here - can you use both the Nationwide Flexaccount card and Credit Card abroad and not pay charges or is it just the Flex account card that has this advantage ? Thanks

pin

mcivord wrote:

Sorry, I'm a bit confused here - can you use both the Nationwide Flexaccount card and Credit Card abroad and not pay charges or is it just the Flex account card that has this advantage ? Thanks

No its both. However you will get charged for withdrawing money from an ATM using your Nationwide Credit Card. For that reason I use the Debit Card for ATM withdrawals and the Credit Card for payments.

TimC

mcivord wrote:

Sorry, I'm a bit confused here - can you use both the Nationwide Flexaccount card and Credit Card abroad and not pay charges or is it just the Flex account card that has this advantage ? Thanks

To give Grumbler a break (!) - read this !

Their are no overseas transaction (loading) fees on either card - but for withdrawing cash on the Nationwide credit card you do pay a cash withdrawal fee of 1.5% or £1.50 (whichever is higher) plus interest. The rule of thumb is to pay for anything that you can on the Nationwide Credit Card, and where this is not possible to use cash obtained from an overseas ATM using a Nationwide Flex Account cash card/visa debit card - that's pretty much the most cost-effective method at the moment.

goldwing_2

Cardew wrote:

Presumably you have checked with the Credit Reference Agencies that they have nothing 'on' you?

We haven't checked with Credit Reference Agencies - Nationwide isn't that important to us that we'd want to spend money to find out what they're doing wrong.

As a (?) bank, I guess they need us more than we need them.

We will, however close-out the cards that we don't use - thanks for that advice.

And, we'll move on from Nationwide.

Thanks for the help.

MarkyMarkD

Nationwide are one of the hardest lenders to get a loan or a credit card from. It's a necessary result of their "we charge everyone the same rate however risky they are" policy, which actually means that they reject everyone that other lenders would lend to at an above-standard rate.

Strangely this policy doesn't apply to mortgages where they DO charge more if you have a smaller deposit (i.e. are higher risk), or if you borrow from their specialist lending subsidiary.

Anyway, none of the above affects your ability to transact free abroad using a Nationwide Debit Card - so why is the Credit Card so important to you?