Soldato
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And do you bank with them as well?
Credit card trap
- Thread starter trigg_27
- Start date
And do you bank with them as well?
Ah I see, it's just the interest rate rang a bell as that was the same as my Capital One card.
Associate
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You should be able to get them to clear it from your record if its an error of some sort.
Credit union loan?
The only way to massively improve your credit rating and as such ability to get nice 0% cards is make very large payments (way above the min payment) to the card, this makes you a more desirable customer and will get access to better credit.
The absolute best way is when you have a card,. it can be any card subprime doesnt matter. Use the card every month, but also pay it off in full every month, you pay no interest and credit rating skyrockets. Of course you past the point of doing this so the next best thing is just to make large payments. Although you could still do this on a second card.
Even if you dont improve enough to get a 0% card the larger payments will at least reduce the debt.
I know the answer is perhaps not what you wanted to hear, but it is what it is.
When I got my first 0% card I had about £2500 loaded up on a £6400 card, it was only one month earlier over a £5000 balance but I had made a £3000 cash payment to it, and was going to pay the rest of that week before someone suggested moving it to a 0% card which worked.
However I also had access to over £11000 of credit completely unutilised on 2 catalogue accounts, so when a credit provider was doing a check on me they seen access to £17k of credit with only £2.5k utilised, utilisation is very important.
You have to save in a credit union before they will give you a loan. Most do if not all.
Indeed.
I think I have access to 26k of credit.
One card is blank and I keep it for credit stability.
Another is Amex which is had hearts and pay off each month
Then a tesco when shops don't take Amex
And finally my mbna 0pc where I pay off 100 a month.
Overall utilisation is less than 10pc which is a good one for future credit. Not always good idea to close off cards
Yeah but even if he takes 6 months to save up in the credit union, he can then apply for a loan of 2 times his savings which he can use to pay off the card...sometimes they will give you 3 times your savings total
Soldato
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- 23 Nov 2004
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- 10,648
Best advice I can give is to talk to them?
I went to the bank recently and ended up taking a new loan, to take up an existing loan that was 10 months away from finishing, a credit card and overdraft into one loan.
Reduced my overdraft right down and with the credit card paid off I transferred a card that had started on a high APR to 4% card.
The woman did have to phone through and explain that I've never missed a payment and that I had voluntarily reduced the credit limits on all of my cards over the last few months.
Doing that meant my actual loan payment was £100 less than the previous one, I didn't have to meet a £25 minimum payment on a card(mostly interest)and pay a daily overdraft fee which would mean around £200 a month less towards debt but what I pay is reducing the principle! The £200 can then be put to more use on debt that has higher APR.
Apparently because it was all in house Bank of Scotland products they could do some magic to sort it as I had previously tried to apply for consolidation loans online and got declined.
Tesco also allow you to have two credit cards with them, I'm not sure if Santander do the same?
I went to the bank recently and ended up taking a new loan, to take up an existing loan that was 10 months away from finishing, a credit card and overdraft into one loan.
Reduced my overdraft right down and with the credit card paid off I transferred a card that had started on a high APR to 4% card.
The woman did have to phone through and explain that I've never missed a payment and that I had voluntarily reduced the credit limits on all of my cards over the last few months.
Doing that meant my actual loan payment was £100 less than the previous one, I didn't have to meet a £25 minimum payment on a card(mostly interest)and pay a daily overdraft fee which would mean around £200 a month less towards debt but what I pay is reducing the principle! The £200 can then be put to more use on debt that has higher APR.
Apparently because it was all in house Bank of Scotland products they could do some magic to sort it as I had previously tried to apply for consolidation loans online and got declined.
Tesco also allow you to have two credit cards with them, I'm not sure if Santander do the same?
Soldato
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- 27 Dec 2005
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How much debt are you actually in? From your APR and pa interest I'm guessing £4,500-5,000? It might change people's advice knowing the total capital you need to move and/or pay?
If you're not happy to say publicly that's fine, I did try to trust you as well but it's not set up yet. Set it up!
If you're not happy to say publicly that's fine, I did try to trust you as well but it's not set up yet. Set it up!
Soldato
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Its just common sense, but IMO its not the best way, all that shows is you are responsible, it does not mean they will want to give you higher limits.
A good way, and what i did(from 18 to 25 or so), would be to simply attempt to keep doing BT's to combine the limits of 2 smaller cards into a new BT card. You need to get many cards to keep your available credit high.
i.e. if you have 1 card with £5k, to BT its dodgy because you are using perhaps 90%+ of your available limit. Also maybe you wont get another card due to that also.
You need to pay it off in full, then apply for another, then you have 2x £5k cards, one full other empty, now if you apply for a BT they will give it to you because if you just wanted £5k you could take it from that other card.
Now you want a service, rather than wanting money, if you want money, they dont give it to you, if you want a service, they give you the money...
So now you have that BT, you have 2 empty cards, and 1 full one, 15k available 5k used.
Great, now open a 4th card, 0%, and put all your spending on it, until you reach 5k again, then try for a 5th card where you try for a 10k BT.
Yea now go close the lowest 2-3 cards, and then repeat that forever,
Keep in mind when i say spending, i mean shopping, subscriptions, bills, etc, i do not mean go and just spend randomly like a lunatic, so this process takes a long time overall.
When i was in university i applied for a Barclays student credit card and they gave me a £600 limit, i called up to cancel the card and said i wanted to purchase a car, or a PC or both, and that they are £2k-£3k each, or even more, and that i would only be using that £600 card if i were a crack addict.
So im not sure if he noted "low limit" as the reason, but maybe 2-3 years later i applied for Barclays again this time normal, and they gave me £10k limit immediately.
As for the OP, you need to make budget cuts, get a 2nd job, do overtime etc... This is your only real solution.
If the OP was in a position to pay it off in full, they wouldn't have made this thread...
Soldato
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Yea i know this, which is why my last sentence is in bold, it may be helpful to him in the future, or even to other people reading this thread.
About 15 years ago I helped write the loan quotation software for one of the largest UK banks. In their case a propensity to pay your loan off more quickly than the term resulted in a higher APR for future loans. That was because the bank will make less money over the term if you pay it back early. I don't know whether the credit card system is similar, although it should improve your credit rating of course (and that as you say will open up better deals).
I'm gonna sound like a broken record here but I was in the same boat as you and thanks to matched betting I cleared it all off in a few months without having to reduce my standard of living.
£1500/year on a 34.9% APR is a total debt of less than £4500. That's not a huge amount of money.
Have a look at an online calculator such as this one, and it'll tell you what kind of payments you need to make in order to pay it back in a given time period, or how the amount you pay will affect the time to pay it off. For example, I presume you're currently making minimum payments of 3%? Or about £135/month? At this rate, you'll pay it off in 10 years. If you can up that by just £10/month you can knock over 3 years off that time. £15/month extra would bring it to 6 years. So you don't have to find a lot of extra money to make a big difference to how long you'll be paying the loan. Put a bit of extra money towards it when you have it and you can get the monkey off your back in a few years. It'll improve your credit rating for the future too.
The best option is still to get a consolidation loan or transfer to a better rate, of course, but don't despair if you can't. Small financial sacrifices on your part will help you get the debt under control.
yes I know thats always a factor, but risk is looked at as well.
I always pay more than the min payments and I always get offered the lowest APR on loans/cards. Always get accepted for 0% cards.
I also tend to have at least one card spare with nothing on it, which someone mentioned as well in replying to my post.
They do make more money from someone only making min payments, but those people are also seen as higher risk, especially if they highly utilised.
Someome above said it very well, if they think you "need" the money rather than just shopping around for a service, they will get twitchy.
When I got my MBNA card start of year, a week later barclaycard increased my limit as if trying to out compete MBNA for my custom, I expect they monitor my file and seen their card was now my lowest limit, and I had cleared the balance as well so perhaps concerned I was going to cancel it.
Caporegime
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- 21 Jun 2006
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34.9%
i take it you never did well in maths at school?
they seriously need to start teaching financial skills in schools in poverty ridden areas.
i think the most i've paid is like 5% in the past 10 years. and thats on paying road tax by direct debit (pennies). on a loan in the past 10 years would be 3%. you are paying more than 10 times this, just simply lol.
i take it you never did well in maths at school?
they seriously need to start teaching financial skills in schools in poverty ridden areas.
i think the most i've paid is like 5% in the past 10 years. and thats on paying road tax by direct debit (pennies). on a loan in the past 10 years would be 3%. you are paying more than 10 times this, just simply lol.
Soldato
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Though you've grown up in a wonderful area, had a great education and are obviously very smart - some manners wouldn't hurt