Denied – any advice?

[TooTall33]

I have recently applied for the new barclaycard Avios card and been denied. My credit score is ‘excellent’ – 655 out of 710 – according to credit karma. I have been with Amex for many years and have a credit limit of £25000 there. I earn £80k a year and have no debt so I am at a loss as to why I would be turned down. Any thoughts?

[pbcold]

You have defined why most succinctly.

[pbcold]

They are looking for customers who will make them money.

[can]

Because you will cost them money.

[JDB]

pbcold wrote:

They are looking for customers who will make them money.

I think you will find that is very much an ‘urban myth’. I and many others earning well over £100k were accepted first time with good credit limits and Rob had told us the acceptance rate is not far off the Amex acceptance rate. There are other factors they are clearly looking at in making decisions, including attracting non Barclays customers.

[Andrew.]

The scores published by Credit Karma, Experian, Equifax, Transunion, and Clearscore are simply their interpretation of the data. The score used by Barclaycard will be based around their own algorithms using data supplied by one or more agency.

The first thing to do is to check your credit report with Experian, Equifax and Transunion to see if there is anything on it that shouldn’t be on it. If you’re Director of a company or Trustee of a Charity, make sure there’s no red flags there either. A colleague recently discovered that being tardy with the accounts of a charity he is Treasurer for, and letting them go overdue, resulted in his mortgage application being declined.

Just having one single card isn’t helpful for the algorithms either. A simple £250 overdraft facility, “just in case” ticks a box – even if you never use it.

It’s surprising how easily you can drop-off the Credit Score radar. An old colleague has a work mobile with his current employer, doesn’t own a car in London, retains his bank accounts and Visa Card with staff banking at his old employer (not reported to the agencies), repaid his staff mortgage (not reported), Wi-Fi is included in the service fee for his building, as is water, gym membership and heating. He doesn’t have a land line. The only thing on his credit score is voter’s roll.

[TooTall33]

Is it really so simple as I pay my bill on time so they are not going to make interest out of me? Surely the transaction fees are also at play? I shall check with Experian though – thanks for that advice. I am glad I only downgraded my Amex rather than got rid of it all together!

[Ant68]

They are definitely making errors. I won’t go into details of my experience, but in my case it wasn’t about my credit rating or about any hidden issues with the credit agencies.

I don’t think it’s necessarily about you not making money for them. I agree that it’s worth double-checking your credit agency details to put your mind at rest, but don’t assume that Barclaycard know what they’re doing. They must use some sort of automated process, and errors can easily be introduced into it. If you can be bothered you can probably appeal it and be processed manually.

If you read this thread you’ll see countless examples of f**kups, and I’m still trying to correct errors that they introduced during their manual acceptance process that have impacted other accounts with Barclays.

[TooTall33]

Thank you – I have always been SO impressed with Amex’ customer service so hearing there are lots of errors being made with this one and having to jump though hoops to (potentially) not even be approved if I raise a case rather minds me to forget about it! Come back Amex…all is forgiven.

[tw33ty]

With klarna going to start reporting useage shortly, even if your not needing to use it for purchases, it might be worthwhile using it to help show credit worthiness, if that’s what they are looking for.

[Aaron C]

Same thing happened to my wife. Earns £120k, £18k limit with AMEX, £10k with the Virgin card. Never missed a payment (that I’m aware of). Straight out rejection on the Barclays website.

[can]

Aaron C wrote:

Same thing happened to my wife. Earns £120k, £18k limit with AMEX, £10k with the Virgin card. Never missed a payment (that I’m aware of). Straight out rejection on the Barclays website.

As it was reiterated in this forum many times, Barclays cannot make enough money from you if you are a high spender with a great credit score. Chances are you won’t pay late fee, interest or balance transfer fees.

[Aaron C]

Maybe but they accepted me (similar profile) and clearly Amex and Virgin aren’t going to be making much from her either.

[can]

Aaron C wrote:

Maybe but they accepted me (similar profile) and clearly Amex and Virgin aren’t going to be making much from her either.

Sure. My situation was similar too. I got accepted not my wife.
Barclays is a legacy bank with a lot of expenses unlike virgin with few small branches and Amex with no branch.

It defeats reason I think. I don’t still understand how “profitable” customers with free Barclays card can be allured with some Avios that they will only use for a flight to paris every five years.

[Rob]

There was anecdotal evidence that suggesting you would be interested in a balance transfer and not mentioning any Barclays current account you may hold tips the scales a bit.

[duggie1982]

I had a Barclaycard about 8 years ago, all no issues but closed it. Ever since then when doing the ‘soft search’ comparing cards and Barclaycard always opted out of my search or had 0% likely hood of acceptance. Even just before then i went and applied directly for BC Avios mastercard and got it no problem, yes a small limit of £4k compared to others i have over £15k

[duggie1982]

Andrew. wrote:

The scores published by Credit Karma, Experian, Equifax, Transunion, and Clearscore are simply their interpretation of the data. The score used by Barclaycard will be based around their own algorithms using data supplied by one or more agency.

The first thing to do is to check your credit report with Experian, Equifax and Transunion to see if there is anything on it that shouldn’t be on it. If you’re Director of a company or Trustee of a Charity, make sure there’s no red flags there either. A colleague recently discovered that being tardy with the accounts of a charity he is Treasurer for, and letting them go overdue, resulted in his mortgage application being declined.

Just having one single card isn’t helpful for the algorithms either. A simple £250 overdraft facility, “just in case” ticks a box – even if you never use it.

It’s surprising how easily you can drop-off the Credit Score radar. An old colleague has a work mobile with his current employer, doesn’t own a car in London, retains his bank accounts and Visa Card with staff banking at his old employer (not reported to the agencies), repaid his staff mortgage (not reported), Wi-Fi is included in the service fee for his building, as is water, gym membership and heating. He doesn’t have a land line. The only thing on his credit score is voter’s roll.

Your mate is deffo a spy lol

[maxfox18]

I applied about two months ago and was declined. According to HfP, the idea is that they attract non-Barclays customers.

I applied for a Chase current account as a second account (also gives access to a savings account with good interest, plus fee free cash withdrawals abroad)

I applied for the Barclaycard Avios Plus again with my Chase current account. Before I did the full application, I also used the eligibility checker.

The eligibility checker pre-approved me. Then the full application was successful. It said that it could only give me £200 credit limit unless I gave it access to my current account. So I did this, but gave it access to my Barclays premier account which is where my salary is paid. It was happy and issued me with a credit limit of £14000.

Overall I am really dissatisfied with them. The first time I applied it said that it needed to do some more thinking, then I had to call up a few days later only to be told I was declined. The second time when I was accepted, I didn’t get an email confirmation until hours later.

I’m now curious to see how long it will take for the credit card to arrive. Miraculously it seems to have figured out that I am a Barclays customer and it has appeared in my banking app.

[Maples]

maxfox18 wrote:

I’m now curious to see how long it will take for the credit card to arrive

I got an email confirmation 8 hours after application on Monday morning and it arrived today, three days later.

[Luca M]

I have been with Barclays since I was 17 (my oldest account albeit I since have moved my main banking elsewhere I still circulate my salary through them and have few DD-the ones that won’t qualify for cash-back elsewhere). I got my first Barclaycard when I was 19 and that account is still open (albeit went through numerous product changes). At one point I held 3 Barclaycard as well when I was playing with balance transfer at 0 fees/ 0% interest. Starting from around £250 credit limit as a University student with a part time job, I eventually got to £20k limit on my oldest Barclaycard account (currently the discontinued Black Cashback card) and about £7.5k on my second one (Hilton). I did not use much either cards for the last 5-6 years as I did most of my spend on Amex anyway (as I did since 2002, first choice if accepted) and on alternative Visa/MasterCard rewards Cards (Lloyds Avios, HSBC Premier WE, MBNA Emirates/Horizon etc)… I am also a Barclay Premier customer with a spotless record (routinely check my Credit file, the score is meaningless) and I have noticed the shift on behaviour with Barclaycard since Covid. They suddenly contacted me in the first lock down to give me notice that my Credit Limit on the oldest account would be slashed from £20k to 7.5k, which I could not appeal, and also stopped offering me Balance Transfer offers that before were a monthly occurrence. I do have the option to swap either of my current Barclaycards in the app, but as the wife also had the same option for both of her standards BarclayCard Platinum, we have decided to switch her accounts to Avios and Rewards, so now we also have another two useful, rewards cards option in the stable.

As a matter of timeline, which may be different for product changes rather the new accounts, it took over a week for the Rewards card and almost a month for The Avios card to arrive (albeit someone said it is linked to the statement date, it still seamed off).

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[robkeane]

JDB wrote:

pbcold wrote:

They are looking for customers who will make them money.

I think you will find that is very much an ‘urban myth’.

You think it’s an urban myth that they are looking customers that will make them money ?

[DTR]

Rather different situation here but looking for advice.

Is there a way to challenge Barclays decision? Has anyone done so successfully?

OH was denied yesterday on the basis of low income high credit (only have 1 Amex CC, excellent credit score). Recently stopped job to take on childcare, continued limited self employed work (<1k/month.) Household income however continues to he very healthy.

No where I could see asked for household income. Wondering if I should have put ‘homemaker’ rather than self employed. Find it bizarre though. What about people in full time childcare with high household income?

[JDB]

DTR wrote:

Rather different situation here but looking for advice.

Is there a way to challenge Barclays decision? Has anyone done so successfully?

OH was denied yesterday on the basis of low income high credit (only have 1 Amex CC, excellent credit score). Recently stopped job to take on childcare, continued limited self employed work (<1k/month.) Household income however continues to he very healthy.

No where I could see asked for household income. Wondering if I should have put ‘homemaker’ rather than self employed. Find it bizarre though. What about people in full time childcare with high household income?

On the first page, before you start the application it says a minimum annual income of £20k is required. Most credit card providers (Amex being a notable exception) don’t take household income into account as that affords them no legal protections as creditors if someone defaulted, nor can they credit check the other household members during your application.

[Froggee]

@DTR – you’ll note in the application that Barclays define what they consider income. Given that your household income is healthy, this bit is key:

“Income can also include regular payments from another person into your bank account, like money from a spouse, rental income and child maintenance.”

Set up a standing order into Mrs DTR’s account and either reapply after a suitable period or have her call Barclays and explain that she has such income but omitted it from the number in her application. However be aware that I believe Barclays report to National Hunter so if she shortly reapplies with a much improved income it could set off flags. So don’t have her make up numbers you cannot evidence.

[notenoughmiles]

DTR wrote:

Is there a way to challenge Barclays decision? Has anyone done so successfully?

I was wondering the same. I’ve had the rejection letter which has no contact info. I know some other providers do offer the opportunity to appeal.

Failing the above, I’ll try pinging them an email if anyone has a direct email address?