My credit card debt situation...

IKON

Just a thought... ::) But the Marbles PC world card has 0% for 9 mths and when I took this offer out a few months ago they matched the highest credit limit I had on one of my other cards.Only had to fax them a copy of latest statement for that card. ;D Dont know if that would be of help to you? Hope so.. 8)

IKON

Woops forgot to say Marbles increased limit from a measly £2k to almost £6K... Might give you some breathing space over 9mths...With christmas comming and all that.... :P

System

I searched through moneysupermarket today to see if I could find PC/Marbles on there, but couldnt. I was surprised. Maybe there's something I dont know about the card though

johnllew

I searched through moneysupermarket today to see if I could find PC/Marbles on there, but couldnt. I was surprised. Maybe there's something I dont know about the card though

Pick up an application form instore.

Rochdale_Guy

You only have £2673 of debt and that should be easily manageable. There are loads of 0% offers out there so you can do a lot better than what you're now paying. Have a look at this article which may help: http://www.rpoints.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=57496&ruid=2005


I'd cancel the cards you no longer need, but keep the MBNA because they often make good follow-on offers (I've had a few at 0 or 1.9%). The £4.3k limit you have with MBNA could be useful in persuading new card issuers to increase the limit they have given you, if less.

Hi !

I may only have £2637 of your debt in your words, but for me it's not such a small amount as I am employed full time but on a temporary register. I have worked full time in my current job since July 1st 2002, but my contracts are only for 1-2 months at a time, and luckily I have been extended since July last year. My new date of finishing is 28th November - so you can see how awkward my predicament is. I also get paid weekly and not knowing if I am gonna be in a job in a months time makes it hard for me to say pay £100 off my Barclaycard each month etc etc.

MoneyTerrorist - my card is an American Express BLUE card. The leaflet said 4.9% on balance transfers for life made within the first 6 months of opening the account, which was 8 months ago now >:(

RochdaleGuy

N.B. I applied online for an EGG card 5 weeks ago and was declined for their 0% for 6 months card >:(

I was also gonna CLOSE my zero balance MBNA card as they won't offer me any new deals, but I'm hesitant over doing do. A £4,300 credit limit is not to be sniffed at, but it's no good to me if I can't transfer any money over to it at a decent LOW fixed rate is it ?

System

Posted over in the 0% Barclaycard forum...

Thanks yet again western promise for that sound advice

Yep, it does look like I can't really do much more doesn't it

FYI, I have never missed a payment or been late.

I always pay just above the minimum payment on the lowest APR cards each month and the most off the highest each month.

Do you think I should ring back MBNA then and ask to close my zero balance card seeing as

a) I don't use it anymore - and -
b) they can't / won't give me any new low rate fixed APR balance transfer rates then ?

I'm worried that closing an account gets put on your credit file and it somehow goes against you ???

I trust you and your advice, if you say "yes", then I'll phone them up later this and ask to close my account.

Thanks so far :-*
RochdaleGuy

[glow=red,2,300]Why am I getting logged out all the time ?[/glow]

System

Morning

£2637 is a lot of money for many people. I think what Johnllew probably meant was that in comparison to your potential available credit, it might be easy to manage if you can get yourself some cards that do have the 0% offer. Im sure Johnllew would know more about what he meant than I would though!

As for Amex, I dont know if anyone else has found this, but in my own experience, it can often take forever to get an Amex card, but once you have one and if you keep it well maintained, they usually chuck their other cards at you like there's no tomorrow. Just an idea, but would it be worth your while trying to transfer that 1K off your Blue card onto another, closing your Amex account, then reapplying in a few months? Alternatively, have you checked with Amex to see whether you could have a second account? Not necessarily Blue, but one of their other cards (but beware of the annual fee)

As for MBNA, you might also want to try applying for a different MBNA card in addition to the one you have. Just a thought. If you look at their website, they've got tons of cards - and in my own experience, I have found that once you have an MBNA card, the procedure to open a second account is fairly easy. You may not get a high credit limit, but its a start - and it can always be increased. I had 2 MBNA cards, an AOL one and a Virgin one, but I didnt use the AOL one so closed it (for some reason) then asked for an increase on my Virgin card. Im not sure what they were thinking, but they increased the limit on Virgin from (I believe) 6200.00 to 20,400 - at that time, I'd never had such a high limit on a single card, but it sure helped out as I transferred loads of stuff onto it.

Im not sure if what I've typed makes sense but I'm sure that many other people will have a better knowledge than I do. I just wanted to share my thoughts.

System

Although the other posters are correct in their advice, as observed elsewhere, Rochdale_Guy, it seems the trouble you're having is that you're getting turned down for all these 0% offers.

There are thus 2 questions - how best to manage your position using the cards you've already got; and how to improve the chances of getting a better card in the future.

You've done all the right things so far in concentrating the debt onto the cheapest cards you have, and in hanging on to those for-life cheap deals. The highest rate you're paying is actually not bad compared to a bank loan. So give yourself a pat on the back for escaping the silly rates we read about in the papers.

I can only think of one thing more you can do in the area of managing your existing situation. Your Barclaycard is charging you 6.9% for life, but your A&L 6 month offer will charge you only 3.4% for six months. What you could so is ask yourself how much of that Barclaycard balance you can pay off over those 6 months - and transfer that amount to A&L.

Let's say you think you could manage £50 a month for 6 months. You could transfer £300 to your A&L and pay them the £50 a month.

The drawback of doing this is that you lose that for-life deal on the £300 you switch away from Barclaycard. The benefit is that you don't really care if you lose it - you were planning to pay off the £300 anyway and you're only paying half as much interest.

So what this will do for you is halve the interest you'll pay on that £300. It's only a few quid, but it's your few quid. Only do this if you're sure you can pay off that amount, though. You don't want to switch it, and then find that you can't make the payments you planned and that it reverts to the normal A&L rate.

You've mentioned some other stuff that I think sheds light on why you're having trouble getting the good deals. Eg, that you're on contract work. Credit card lenders don't like uncertain incomes.

You've also mentioned that you've got a Lidl at the bottom of your road. Lidl is a cut-price grocer often located in not-very-affluent areas. Credit card lenders don't like those sort of postcodes either. Credit scoring isn't always as subtle as we think.

So it's possible that even with an exemplary credit history, your trouble in getting the 0% deals is happening because of where you live and your type of work. You're being appraised on both your history and your potential, in effect.

In the short-term, there isn't much you can do about either your address or employment terms, unfortunately.

The question of what to do about existing cards you don't use is a tough one and I don't think there is a definitive answer. Some lenders seem to like it if you have a lot of well-managed credit, because it means you can handle it. Others seem to dislike it because it looks like you've got too much credit and you may get into trouble.

Personally I would cancel any card I rarely use. The act of cancelling a credit card does not adversely affect your credit standing.

The advantage of this is that although there are many 0% deals out there, there are only a few banks behind all of them: Lloyds TSB, MBNA, Morgan Stanley, Citibank, Capital One. Some of those banks won't approve you for a 0% deal through a rebranded credit card if they've already got you as a customer.

For instance, I have an Accucard which paid 1.6% cashback for the first three months. When that ran out I applied for a Createcard, thinking I'd get another 3 months of 1.6% cashback off that one. I got turned down. When I looked into it I found that Createcard and Accucard are both provided by Lloyds TSB. They either didn't want more exposure to me or they didn't want me getting 3 more months of 1.6% cashback.

The relevance of this for you is that if you scratch your unused cards, you might make yourself eligible to reapply for them in the future, and get the new customer deals all over again. If you keep them, you clearly won't. They may come back to you with a better offer as an existing customer, but then again they may not.

Main thing to do here is to budget to pay the full balance on your normal day-to-day card and to make the minimum payment on all those with debts on them. Then, any additional money you can get together to pay them off needs to be carefully applied.

Your A&L balance is going to get expensive again in 6 months' time, so try to clear that one within those 6 months. If you manage to do that, start on the Barclaycard. When you've cleared that, move on to the NatWest.

Incidentally, have you tried enrolling in https://www.mbnanetaccess.co.uk? If you sign up to run your MBNA account online you may find there are some online offers. I transferred a balance to MBNA a while back after they rang me up and offered it, but all the time it was right there on the website had I bothered to go look.

System

Final thought - who do you bank with? Your own bank knows you better than any other lender. If they do a 0% credit card, you could always try applying for theirs.

Rochdale_Guy

Hi again. Been offline for a few days. Thanks for all the advice still.

Had a letter off Barclaycard (total rip off) saying I can transfer a balance to my BC for 2.9% APR until March next year but I must spend £25 a month on my card to get this rate.

What a total con eh ? Spend £25 a month each month to get a limited 2.9% rate. Huh, waste of paper that was.

At least with my current deal it's 6.9% APR fixed until paid off with NO monthly spend required.

Anyway, I will phone up American Express and see if can transfer money off my B/Card onto the AmEx Blue - but only it they let me have it @ 4.9% fixed for life.

Cheers again.
RochdaleGuy