Credit

[addjunkie]

I pay my credit card off every couple of days. I know full well that if I leave it a week or so I’m suddenly in debt more than most small countries are.

How come spending a couple of quid here and there on a credit card you soon owe 3 grand, but a couple of quid here and there chucked into a saving account only gives you £12 after a year?

All those couple of quids here and there sharp mount up!

 

[RichardM]

I used to do that too. The thrill of getting one over on the man was worth it.

A friend does this and makes a good profit on it, also buys through cashback sites.

Nope, wife just pays hers before due date and pays no interest and she does it a lot

We have credit cards, most big shops food, petrol, etc go on them, as does holiday shopping. Pay it off at the end of month for no interest charges and get points towards shopping vouchers.
My PayPal bill also go to the credit card account and not direct to bank account. I get Nectar points and voucher points on that!

 

[oldbikedavey]

Tangible assets are worth considering.

 

[rtcosic]

its also the part i hate to do with couples the mrs has no credit record even if they are both named on the account

as my mum found out she knew the bank manager, she paid the bills, everything in cash for her had done for 40 years

my father then past away she had no credit record

even though she owned the whole house her credit at the bank was a thousand and advised to pay off bills buy what you want with the cc

that was just to improve her credit record

We have credit cards, most big shops food, petrol, etc go on them, as does holiday shopping. Pay it off at the end of month for no interest charges and get points towards shopping vouchers.
My PayPal bill also go to the credit card account and not direct to bank account. I get Nectar points and voucher points on that!

Everything goes on the cashback credit cards and is paid by DD. Local parking is £1 so I use a coin for that as I resent paying the commission to the online provider - and shoving a single coin in is quicker anyway. My phone wallet holds Nectar and every other 'loyalty card' that has ever been foisted on me (or SWMBO).

PayPal is linked to AMEX so I get my 1% back even on those sites that don't take Paypal edit: AMEX! If they take neither then I use the fallback 0.5% cashback card.

The 2 non-cashback cards are SWMBO's and I'm the secondary user. The various bills like rates, utilities etc are split between us so we each have a credit history. One of her credit cards is paired with her bank account. We use that credit card for online purchases from sites we haven't used before to limit risk. The credit card has a very low limit, the bank account balance is kept down to small change and has no overdraft facility. That may be 'an (over)abundance of caution'.
Eta: that account is a 'premium' account and we set up one of those round the houses standing order circuits to meet its criteria. We get travel insurance, phone insurance, breakdown cover etc for £120 per year.

Across all the cards it means we have AMEX, Visa and MasterCard. We got caught out in Budapest decades ago when we only had a Visa card and MasterCard had the local monopoly (or the other way around!). Never found a use for Diner's Club - does it still exist?

Some time last century I had around a dozen credit cards back when you kept getting those flyers 'You have been pre-approved for a credit card - sign here'. One day I had the rats with how fat my wallet had become and decided to purge them. I added up the available credit over them all and it came to over £25k! Hardly surprising some people got into unmanageable levels of debt.

 

[redlig]

It's not always about taking a loan out or a new credit card it can be simple things like paying for insurance with installments or paying a gas or electricity bill.

But to be honest I find it so wrong a private company can set up and first of all get personal information on you. But even worse supply it to others.
Not only that but they all have differing credit indicators a few of which make no sense.View attachment 449842

I am reading that correctly am I not??

I also thought that changes are being brought in where you no longer get a free 30 plus days to clear all the card to zero. I.e they charge you from the day you purchase an item??

View attachment 449843

I lost 11 points just because of 2 hard searches. Car insurance and I assume my bank for the same thing??

In case anyone is unaware the reason you need a good credit score ( assuming you need credit, is because the interest rate they charge varies according to your credit score, which often makes no sense.

Is it just me or do others think or feel the same?

EDIT: I just noticed the one search is from 2023. I made an application for a further advance to pay for the lease on our house. It was actually accepted and funds were paid out....but as they sent it to the wrong place, and issues with length of current lease, it was sent back.
But the hard search stays on my account and affects my credit score.
This just can't be right, can it?

He who pays the piper calls the tune.

 

[northwest]

Well this is a good example of how credit can get away from you:

‘I lost my home when my £1,500 car loan ballooned to £65,000’

Everyday Loans customer saw his debt snowball despite seeking support

www.telegraph.co.uk

When Brian Flynn took out a £1,500 loan to buy his friend’s car four years ago, he had no idea it would one day cost him his family home.

The loan, which ballooned to £65,000 as a result of interest charges and insolvency fees, left him in council accommodation and with no house to one day pass on to his children.

Mr Flynn, a building maintenance surveyor for a housing association in Manchester, took out a £1,500 loan in July 2020 with a lender called Everyday Loans.

But after paying the first instalment, Mr Flynn lost his job and had to sign up for Universal Credit. He says he rang up the loan provider to ask for an alternative payment plan, as he could no longer afford the instalments – but claims they declined to help.

 

[Robotstar5]

<snip> We use that credit card for online purchases from sites we haven't used before to limit risk. The credit card has a very low limit, the bank account balance is kept down to small change and has no overdraft facility. That may be 'an (over)abundance of caution'.

We do the same, but the credit card company just raised the credit limit when the card was cloned and someone started spending on it

 

[rtcosic]

We do the same, but the credit card company just raised the credit limit when the card was cloned and someone started spending on it

Well, that's just irritating! At least you have proof they knew there was an anomaly and they responded inappropriately.

One of our 4 cards is MBNA. We have that because at the time they were the only credit card that allowed 4 secondary users. Each of the three offspring had a card on this account for emergencies as this gave them all use of our £10k limit. These days are long past and they are entirely self sufficient (except for Mom's baking products).
The only minor issue was that it was rarely used and when it was it was either outside the EU, large sums, or otherwise odd purchases so nearly every transaction required a conversation with the security section. Never had a transaction refused, although the time I was in Jo'burg, SWMBO was in Pembrokeshire, No 1 was in Boston and No 2 was in St Petersburg did result in a long conversation with security! I was the only one who hadn't used the damn thing.

 

[CompoSimmonite]

I only use a credit card to pay for holidays - wife goes away on around 6-9 short breaks a year !
Always pay off the debit the following day.

 

[Farside]

Bloody annoying, the scoring system.
I worked my nuts off to clear my debts just before the crash of 2008 and since then haven't had a CC, just a debit card.
As a result, in spite of paying off every cent I owed, my credit rating is in the toilet.
Fskin bstds.

 

[Morrisman]

…. One day I had the rats with how fat my wallet had become and decided to purge them. I added up the available credit over them all and it came to over £25k! Hardly surprising some people got into unmanageable levels of debt.

The first line on the top of credit card statements tells you how much you have left to spend on the card, not how much you owe. If that’s not psychologically pressing people to spend more I don’t know what it.

And when they regularly write and tell you how you have qualified for an increase in your spending limit…same again.

My ex-wife, habitual spender, she couldn’t go to the shops for a loaf of bread and spend less than £30. I lost track of the times I’d pay off her cards, get her to promise not to get any more…… and weeks later I’d find she’d somehow got another one.

5 seconds in a microwave destroys the chip on a credit card quite successfully, so it looks perfect, but won’t work.

 

[ukracer]

Absolutely insane

 

[Onthespotwelding]

Dodgy-looking as a chimp with a cigar, that site.
It's probably legit, but it gives off the air of being shady as heck.

Nope I have used it with zero issues and it’s recommended by Martin Lewis on his website

 

[sasquar]

Im not at all convinced by the accuracy of the credit score sites (clearscore/experian are the two i have first hand knowledge of). Ive had a couple of mortgages on the go for the last couple of decades, and at no point have both of them been showing on there?? They both had one, then when i remortgaged them both, had the other one instead?!?! When I paid one of them off, my credit score dropped by 150 points as well, which seemed a bit ouchy. Not that it matters much to me, i *do* have a credit card, try and use it once a year or so, just to keep it going (ive lost a couple by forgetting in the past) but I cant honestly see me using a credit facility again if i can help it, compoud interest is something im very keen to avoid on everything, other than my pension......

 

[ajlelectronics]

but I cant honestly see me using a credit facility again

You should ALWAYS use it on any physical purchase over £100 and under £30k. There is no need for it to cost you a bean because you will pay it off in full by DD. That gives you Section 75 CCA consumer protection which is worth its weight in gold at zero cost to you. Even if you only pay a fiver deposit against an item on your card, you still qualify for the full protection.

 

[Morrisman]

You should ALWAYS use it on any physical purchase over £100 and under £30k. There is no need for it to cost you a bean because you will pay it off in full by DD. That gives you Section 75 CCA consumer protection which is worth its weight in gold at zero cost to you. Even if you only pay a fiver deposit against an item on your card, you still qualify for the full protection.

Yes, credit card gives you much more protection that using a debit card, or the manly way of ‘I always pay cash, I don’t like owing money”

 

[sasquar]

You should ALWAYS use it on any physical purchase over £100 and under £30k. There is no need for it to cost you a bean because you will pay it off in full by DD. That gives you Section 75 CCA consumer protection which is worth its weight in gold at zero cost to you. Even if you only pay a fiver deposit against an item on your card, you still qualify for the full protection.

thats really interesting, i used to do that a lot for that very reason, but was under the impression that the debit cards now offered the same protection, however a quick google (something i *should* have done at the time!) has confirmed that my impression was incorrect, and that i will be firing up my credit card again on a regular basis! Cheers!!

 

[Morrisman]

thats really interesting, i used to do that a lot for that very reason, but was under the impression that the debit cards now offered the same protection, however a quick google (something i *should* have done at the time!) has confirmed that my impression was incorrect, and that i will be firing up my credit card again on a regular basis! Cheers!!

With a credit card you’re using the banks money, with debit it’s your own money, so guess which one they are more concerned about protecting.

 

[ajlelectronics]

thats really interesting, i used to do that a lot for that very reason, but was under the impression that the debit cards now offered the same protection, however a quick google (something i *should* have done at the time!) has confirmed that my impression was incorrect, and that i will be firing up my credit card again on a regular basis! Cheers!!

Debit cards have limited chargeback protection on a bank's voluntary agreement for 90 days. You can bring a Section 75 claim for up to six years and is compulsory protection.

 

[ukracer]

Crazy credit info from the money grabbers. Credit reference agencies.



I actually took out insurance. Something I legally have to do.