I am 47 and have just taken out my first bank loan two weeks ago. It’s hardly even that – it’s called “revolviong credit” and basically it means I have a thousand dollars of overdraft protection on my checking account.
I have a mortgage that I got from a mortgage company, not a bank. Besides a CC those are the only two loans I’ve ever had.
You don’t even need to talk to someone to apply. At most banks there is a online application process. You can probably print out forms and drop them off if you don’t don’t want to send sensitive personal info over the web.
If they decline to give you a loan, ask why. Explicitly. Politely.
Bosda, are you on the electoral roll for your area? If you are, does the place that registers you for elections have the same address as the one you actually use?
After signing up with a credit check website I discovered that my local authority have my address registered in a really, really odd way, one that I would never have guessed at and can’t actually enter on any web forms that matter moneywise - for example, they have my street listed as my county. My street has the name of a different county but this is not exactly uncommon.
I got it corrected on the credit website and have since been approved for stuff I was previously automatically barred from, despite me previously having a pretty good income and no debts but a good bank account then, and having a terrible income now. OTOH, I’ve also since been turned down by, of all things, the National Lottery (for saving numbers), because they can’t verify where I live - presumably they’re checking electoral rolls whereas banks check with Experian.
The council still have the bizarre address listed for me, but they deliver by hand.
A more appropriate question would be to ask if he was on the electoral roll 7 years ago (since that’s when most of this thread was entered and presumably when his problems were).
One thing that hasn’t been addressed: there exist banks which are not interested in car loans and if you ask about it will give you the fuck-off price.
Anyway, this story is a long time comin’. Tell us the rest of it, Bosda!
That was my thought as well. Credit ratings don’t go up just because you show that you can pay off your balance every month. They go up because you show that you can buy something big, and pay it off over a long series of monthly payments.
That’s why having a student loan and paying it down, or buying a car and paying it off over time, or buying a house and paying on your mortgage, or building up a few thousand in credit card debt and paying it off over 6 months works for increasing your credit rating. When you do those things correctly (no missed payments, etc…), you show a pattern of behavior of consistently paying your loans off over time, which is what they want to see.
Debt free is good in a sort of general philosophy, but in practical terms, it’s better to incur debt that you could easily pay off, but then pay it off in installments to build/increase your credit rating. That way, you’re not really under your debt per-se, but you’re showing a pattern of responsible installment paying.
Those cites appear to support your point, but only if you don’t understand the credit scoring system.
The algorithm doesn’t reward you for having a balance and paying it down, it rewards you for your CURRENT utilization.
If you’re doping your score in order to qualify for something, run up your % utilization on bank credit cards to ±15% for JUST LONG ENOUGH to have it report to the bureau in question.
Your history of bad debt… collections, late pays, those get factored in. No analysis I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen quite a few, of scoring has ever indicated that trends of rising and declining balances help.