All Things Credit (Cards, Limits, Scores)

Thankfully mine is fine so far:

Though surprised Monzo doesn’t use a Lloyds logo…

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Monzo no like horses

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Monzo fine with horses for connected accounts though.

There should be a lot more popping up here when it updates next week. All my NatWest Group accounts are now showing, as well as Chase and Santander on my CheckMyFile.

Also this is just proof that credit scores are bs.

472 → 676 in 3 weeks :eyes:. Electoral Roll, then Flex being reported. Equifax this is.

giphy

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Not really. Getting on the electoral roll is quite important as is getting the first credit card.

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I wouldn’t agree with this personally

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Getting on the electoral role is a massive bump up for your credit profile tbf. My score jumped the day I was eligible to vote in the UK

Making your life miserable for a particular number (especially Equifax) is :ox::poop: but credit profile overall isn’t. Recently I had a rental agency asking for a screenshot of my Experian score, which was the first time I’ve come across. I’m 1 point away from Excellent so the agency got in contact straight away for a viewing but my total credit limit is still well under 5 digits. :sweat_smile:

Another example why credit score is important: my friend was on Equifax’s lower end of “Good”, couldn’t even get an installment agreement as they never had any clean repayment streaks, was only pre-approved for 60% of my pre-approved limit on 19.9% APR (an extra 5% compared to mine) with Lloyds.

Access to credit facilities is important and the saying “it’s expensive to be poor” is painfully true. It’s something to be wary of if you’re still thinking of applying for new financial products.

PS: Back on TransUnion’s Excellent after tanking it with an account opening spree thanks to the Ultra finally appears on my report. :tada:

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Weird I found was that paying off your mortgage drops your score quite a bit. They like you to have a mortgage.

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Banks love it when your life is dependent on them. :joy:

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I’m replying here to avoid being off topic on Flex thread.

@jo :100: this. Having too much available credit compared to your annual income would reduce your chance of acceptance for loans/car finance, makes you look like a risky borrower.

Nope, holding a balance long enough to generate a monthly statement and pay that statement off is good (aka don’t pay it off before the monthly statement is generated). My score slightly reduced when I left a card unused for 3-6 month.

Credit-builder cards are :ox::poop: - low limits high APR - only useful for people with poor credit history. If you were a blank slate, having enough data on your customer profile with your main bank gets you much better deals - that’s how I started out with LBG.

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This is what I’ve done with Monzo. Cuz Capital One absolutely refuses to give me a credit card. Which is shocking as I thought they’d genuinely accept anyone for it.

I tried the Lloyds eligibility checker but they said no to me :confused:

I think an income of £4,200 is just too low for even the credit building cards to want to give me the card. Whereas Monzo was happy. ClearScore, Experian etc all say I can only get the credit building debit cards, and that I’ve 0% chance of acceptance for any credit card.

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They probably looked at the fact you’ve recently turned 18, still in education, on top of the low annual income. The standard minimum annual income for most cards is £10k.

Nice that Monzo really is making money work for you. :monzocard: :raising_hands:t3:

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Possibly but it depends on how you use your credit as well. My available credit is about twice my income and I’ve not personally experienced any issues. I am trying to lower it, because I don’t need that much credit.

The one that annoys me is with transunion, I get my credit statements towards the end of the month and I prefer to pay it off there and then but that hits my score. If I wait to the first of the next month, no issue. I guess it’s down to the point the banks report to the credit agencies.

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All the lenders that I have dealt with report balance at end of calendar month. Even Lloyds that reports in the teens still reports balances on last day of calendar month.
So if you are playing that game, make sure your payments have cleared by end of calendar month’s last working day.

I have seen that with Capital one, Paypal credit, Lloyds, Nationwide, Vanquis, Barclays, Tesco, FD.

And if you check the detailed reports, they also show the statement balance at time of reporting.

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Personally I prefer to pay things off when I get the statement but it seems to make me look worse from a credit file perspective. So, sadly I have to play that game. I’ve taken to setting up direct debits for the full amount and putting the money there and that normally does the trick, as they’re taken the next month.

You can change payment due date to be towards end of month around 25/26 to be safe. Then you won’t have to think of it anymore.

I always play it when about to make applications, besides that I just let direct debits do their work.
Sometimes I even push big purchases to the 1st of the month.

They’re all set to land around the 25th and 28th for the statement dates but if I pay the balance off before the end of month, the balances are not reported.

Credit report apps take time to report new balances, sometimes lenders.
At the moment I only have up to date balances for Paypal, the rest still show balances at end of April. I know on Monday the rest will be up to date but Lloyds tends to send dat in between 12-17th.
When you look at those balances reported, click on the account and see when the balance was last reported.

See one of my Lloyds cards at Credit Karma

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Thank you, I’ll have to have a look at the reporting date

My April’s statement was paid before mid May but I still got a Credit Karma notification end of May that I was using 30% of my credit limit. :grimacing:

So to “play that game”, rather than leaving my DD clear the balance in May I should’ve cleared it end of April? Doesn’t make much sense to my cashflow, so I still prefer my set up for payment to fall on first week of the month, and statement date cover until before mid-month. :thinking: