Cards NOT currently tightening the screw?

Sheepy1209

Hi,
this post might be better in debt-free wannabee so happy for it to be moved!

I've currently got four credit cards, all pretty near the limit. Over the last six months I've managed to stabilise my finances and with a pay rise coming this month I'm in a position to begin snowballing.

One thing that's of concern, though, is recent behaviour by some of the card companies. I've already experienced:

MBNA (who took over my Alliance & Leicester account, swines) putting the interest rate up to 34.9% APR (I know I'm not the only one!)
Barclaycard reducing the credit limit to £200 above the current balance (again, they seem to be doing this for fun)

Those two don't worry me as my wife's giving me a loan (out of recent redundancy money) to cover the MBNA card and allow me to close it, while the Barclaycard is a life-of-balance transfer so I didn't intend to use the card anyway.

(My views on MBNA are reflected in plenty of posts on this board - pure greed. Squeezing limits or increasing minimum payments I can understand, but MBNA's interest-rate practice just stinks.)

My question is this - I also have accounts with Capital One and Intelligent Finance and I wondered if either of these has also started tightening the screw.

I want to maintain an available credit of about £1000 on one of these; partly for handling the unexpected but also because we have a holiday booked in July and I need to be able to get pre-approval on a card for the hire car (though we'll pay the hire itself in cash).


Cheers.

dhassen

I've not seen any posts about Cap One and IF raising aprs yet.......

Sounds like your getting sorted though, good on ya

Henwen

I went into Halifax today and saw an ad for their "all in one" card. It's available to customers with no credit check and gives 10 months free purchases and balance transfers (though 3% fee applies). The credit limit they offered was quite high. I have other credit and they didn't even ask about the other balances/payment history.

If you have an IF account (HBoS group) this may work for you too? Worth asking anyway.

Kavanne

Henwen wrote: »

I went into Halifax today and saw an ad for their "all in one" card. It's available to customers with no credit check and gives 10 months free purchases and balance transfers (though 3% fee applies). The credit limit they offered was quite high. I have other credit and they didn't even ask about the other balances/payment histor

What is this and how can I get one?!

System

Henwen wrote: »

I went into Halifax today and saw an ad for their "all in one" card. It's available to customers with no credit check and gives 10 months free purchases and balance transfers (though 3% fee applies). The credit limit they offered was quite high. I have other credit and they didn't even ask about the other balances/payment history.

If you have an IF account (HBoS group) this may work for you too? Worth asking anyway.

Absolutely no credit card in the UK is issued without a credit check of some description, especially from a mainstream lender like HBOS.

UNDERGROUND

YorkshireBoy

UNDERGROUND wrote: »

Absolutely no credit card in the UK is issued without a credit check of some description, especially from a mainstream lender like HBOS.

I was given 2 x £10K cards from Halifax earlier this year without any external CRA searches being carried out.

System

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

I was given 2 x £10K cards from Halifax earlier this year without any external CRA searches being carried out.

Hence the reason I said 'a credit check of some description', whether that be external or otherwise!

UNDERGROUND

YorkshireBoy

UNDERGROUND wrote: »

Hence the reason I said 'a credit check of some description', whether that be external or otherwise!

Hi UNDERGROUND,

Could you give an example of a "credit check of some description" that falls into the "otherwise" (ie not involving an external CRA such as Experian et al) category?

System

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

Hi UNDERGROUND,

Could you give an example of a "credit check of some description" that falls into the "otherwise" (ie not involving an external CRA such as Experian et al) category?

For example a financial institution checking their own internal records and behaviour scores based on previous or current account(s) conduct / status.

UNDERGROUND

YorkshireBoy

UNDERGROUND wrote: »

For example a financial institution checking their own internal records and behaviour scores based on previous or current account(s) conduct / status.

It's very limited though, isn't it? For example, although I have had several HBOS run cards over the last few years, and have a Halifax current account, I only had £2.5K with Halifax at the time the offers were made.

The way (as it turned out) I 'fooled' them was to route £50K of stoozed funds through the current account and onwards to Sainsbury's a few months before. In addition, I'd been routing £1K per month for a year through the account.

Had they externally searched me, they'd have seen my total stoozing debt (which was well over 100% of salary) and no way would they have given me another £20K. After all, that would have been irresponsible wouldn't it?

System

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

It's very limited though, isn't it? For example, although I have had several HBOS run cards over the last few years, and have a Halifax current account, I only had £2.5K with Halifax at the time the offers were made.

The way (as it turned out) I 'fooled' them was to route £50K of stoozed funds through the current account and onwards to Sainsbury's a few months before. In addition, I'd been routing £1K per month for a year through the account.

Had they externally searched me, they'd have seen my total stoozing debt (which was well over 100% of salary) and no way would they have given me another £20K. After all, that would have been irresponsible wouldn't it?

Yes, limited indeed! But to be fair there's not many 'average punters' who channel that sort of cash through their accounts so it's odds on that the majority of card applicants will be Experianed!

And my point still stands: There's always credit checks done for a credit card - internal, external, inside, outside or upsidedown, they check you out somehow or other!

UNDERGROUND

P.S. Always a pleasure to read your posts YB, you make alot of sense! :rolleyes: