Annoyed!

Neoshoegal

I keep getting rejected for credit cards and I can't work out why. I got a Tesco credit card some time ago, made a balance transfer from hubby's card to it for £1000 (credit limit I got). I repaid it in full within 6 months and then cancelled the card. This is the only credit card I've ever managed to get hold of. I'm not a big fan of owning credit cards, but it would be nice to get a 0% one to help of pay hubby's credit card.
I'm self employed, earn about £20000 a year (not regular as it's freelance work which is busier over summer). Hubby earns more than that. He has 3 cards and is steadily paying them off. I have never in my life missed a payment on anything. I requested my credit report and there is nothing negative in it. It's not the best rapport ever, it's apparantly somewhere in the middle (and according to the report 30% better than most people). We have a joint account and I have a seperate personal account. We have a mortgage and no loans.
yet I keep getting refused credit cards. I tried the Virign one, they said my report was limited in information so they needed to see some 3 months of bank statements, all 3 were positive. Yet I still got refused. That was at the beginning of this year. I then tried again last week for a Capital One card. Within 3 days I got a letter to say I was refused credit. Nobody can tell me why I get refused. it's a complete mystery to me.
I don't get it! What's wrong with me???

Robert_Sterling_3

It is a good idea on your part to get a credit card with a 0% rate.
You got one.
You used it to your advantage.
The credit card provider lost money by issuing you with a card.
It is a good idea for credit card companies not to issue credit cards to people like you ( and me ) who use them in this manner.
They may have a problem in identifying customers like us but if they do manage it then it is "a fair cop" in my opinion.

abwsco

Have you got copies of your credit reports to see what's showing on those?

innovate

Hmmh, difficult to say...may be they consider you unacceptable risk because you are self-employed?

You could try and play about with one of the credit scorers (e.g. https://www.checkmyfile.com/ to see how different paramaters might impact your assessed credit worthiness. I say might because different lenders use different rules, and they guard their scoring algorythms very closely. Be careful if you use one of the scorers - all they want is that you sign up from their site!
Oh - some of the scorers only let you have 3 goes - you can circumvent that by deleting your cookies, then restarting your browser and do your next 3...

Also check out 6 Top Credit Score Killers

As a final resort, you could officially appeal against a rejection. That usually leads to a discussion(s) over the phone with the lender, where you might stand a better chance to convince them that they really do want to give you a card. I know that appeals can work, so try it!