visa electron

[123bernadett]

ive been turned down for a connect card by barclays because of derogatory info on credit file.its my husband who has ccjs etc, ive no debts at all.i really want to upgrade to connect card, is there anything i can do

[gammaray]

adverse credit scoring will effect the address not necessarily just the individual. When they credit score you, your address goes into the big computer ....and the "computer says no"! It's a problem but you could try appealing to barclays better natue (assuming you can find it!).

If you've already got a card of some sort it seems a little churlish of them to refuse to upgrade you. However as banks are staffed by people who are blessed with weapons grade stupidity as well as a singular lack of the "free thinking" Gene, and can't go to the toilet until a computer says it's ok, it's not surprising you have hit this type of problem.

You could suggest to your bank that you open a separate account in your own name (assuming you currently have a joint account). If that fails you could suggest that another high street bank might be more helpful.

[Oneeyedvic]

"adverse credit scoring will effect the address not necessarily just the individual" Sorry gammray but this is just not true.

Credit scores are on an individual. There can be 'associations' made which are people who have in the past made a joint application (eg mortgage, loan etc) together. Their finances are intwinned and so if one is bad, it can / will affect the other.

If your husband were to be made bankrupt, this would obviously affect you and this is why your score is affected.

If you are divorced / sepperated from your husband, then you can file a "notice of disassociation" with the credit reference agencies (www.experian.co.uk and www.equifax.co.uk). This will then remove the financial link between you both and finance companies will only see your data and not your husbands.

[gammaray]

Thank you Vic, I'm sure in principle you are right, but my brother had difficulty obtaining credit when he moved house. It turned out that the previous owner had unpaid debts and a ccj registered against her. Credit scoring through up that a ccj was listed against the occupant of the address so my brother was refused even though he was not the debtor. It may be in an ideal world that it shouldn't make a difference but the reality is that it does.

[Oneeyedvic]

"In an ideal world" - if someone tells you that a previous tennant / owner of a property has a default, ccj etc they are very obviously breaking the law. The Information COmmissioner would take a very dim view of this.

I can go by experience and tell you what I see when I do a credit report on an individual. It will tell me if you are on voters role (and also the previous tennant's names on voters role). Next is the linked addresses which show your last few years places of residence (and whether you were on voters role there). It will tell me any associations (people you have a financial link with) and any aliases (married name, misspelt name etc).

It then goes on to tell me about public registered items such as CCJs and IVAs. It then goes on to CAIS information - this is a series of numbers, telling me if you are paying on time (0), a month late (1) etc. This goes to a 8 when in default.

Finally we get to see who else has searched you in the last 12 months. This is pretty much it (we don't check CIFAS the fraud section) as it costs extra.

This is all the infomraiton that we see and you can get a copy of this information from experian and equifax.

In fact, you actually get slighlty more information as lenders are not aware of which financial institution has lent you the money.

A lot of people will flannel you with rubbish about other tennants etc. This is not true (now anyway - they did used to be linked).

[gammaray]

Thanks vic that's very interesting. I know in my brothers case it was sorted out quite quickly as he complained to a higher authority in the building society, and the "problem" just seemed to evaporate. I wonder sometimes if it's the caliber of the staff processing the applications etc that create the real problems. I remember trying to buy a microwave on credit (a good number of years ago) and the application was refused because the idiot feeding the information into the computer couldn't get around the fact that my address had a name and not a number. The space on the credit form on his computer only accepted numerical info, so he couldn't get my full address into the system. So the application was turned down.