Credit card application declined

  • Dan82's Avatar
    Fresh Eyes
    I've just had an application for a credit card declined and I've no idea why.

    I have a decent credit score (980/999 on Experian & 783/1000 on Clearscore). I have no outstanding debts, other than my mortgage, and a decent income.

    The only thing I can think is I was subject to a fraudulent payment on my current account last weekend. It was refunded to me by my bank and investigated by the fraud team - would something like this affect my application? It's not showing on any of my credit reports when I've just checked.

    Thanks in advance,

    Dan
  • 1 Reply

  • Dan82's Avatar
    Fresh Eyes
    After speaking to somebody yesterday they explained it wasn't necessarily anything to do with my credit rating, I just hadn't scored enough "points" according to their specific criteria.

    I went on Money Saving Experts eligibility checker to see what other options I had available, (I only want a small limit and I intend to pay it in full each month, so was interested in cards with rewards). I was 100/95% pre-approved for loads, including; Sainsburys, Amex, virgin, Barclaycard... But 0% for Tesco.

    Out of interest I played around with the algorithm a bit. Even with my income at £500k, no mortgage and no dependents it always came back at 0% chance with Tesco.

    Those were the only bits of 'financial' info used, (and obviously no credit search is done at this stage), so I can only assume the decision is based on the other details provided, i.e my name, age, address...

    Obviously they will never admit this and just hide behind their 'scoring system', but it doesn't sit right with me and I'll be avoiding Tesco from now on.