MAC76

Been with Barclaycard for 8 years... always every month paid my payment on time etc etc

2 weeks ago i paid the balance in full knowing it was probably going to take a battering in the sales and over christmas.

Got a letter through the post today stating that they are changing my credit limit from £3000 to £260??

So i ring them up to be told that its all based on credit scoring etc etc ... so i have logged on to experian and got my credit report... nothing wrong there! Ring them back.... "oh it could also be to do with how your account is run" ... well i know there is not a problem there.

They will not reverse the decision and i have to wait a few months for my account to be looked at.

Any idea on what i can do apart from get a better credit card where the company dont make up thier own rules?? Dont seem right to me?

ChefDude

i think you answered your own question; go elsewhere.

if you get refused another CC, you know your credit history is not adequate

KiwiGTI

Basically all the banks are now tightening up on credit, they know too well that bankruptcies are going to increase drastically over the next couple of years (fact, not rumours). They are also responding to some complaints of irresponsible lending and have also started to share more information than they have previously.

So a lot of people will start having their limits reduced, their cash advance facilities withdrawn (UK only) and their spending monitored.

I had the same thing from Barclaycard - pay my balance off in full most of the time but they suddenly stopped my cash advance facility, said it was because it wasn't supposed to be used as a cash card.

jasey

Morgan Stanley - if you clear each month they'll pay you to run their credit card with up to 2% cash back each year.

I've never heard of a credit card company reducing credit limits simply because the balance is cleared each month .

Are you not mentioning the 3 missed payments .

Tidgy

prob because you never get charges on it from them, so they have reduced your limit.

i had similar kinda thing with my overdraft, got small overdraft on my account £100, for those just in case end of month things, like petrol or shopping or whatever, didn't use it for 2 years, then came to use it, and got a letter through saying i had been charged for going over drawn, checked my account and was only about £50 into overdraft. so rang them up and asked y i had been charged, was told 'because you have no overdraft', my reply it was set up 3 years ago. they lloked into it, o sorry it was cancelled because you never used it. ffs, i set it up for the odd occasion i needed it and when i do its not there.

be all and end all was after going through speaking to boss of call centre person, then his boss, then finaly boss of whole call centre and moaning like hell, they refunded the money and reset up the overdraft.

i never recieved a letter saying it had been cancelled or anything like that, they just did it.

that was with barclays as well by the way

RoShamBo

iTrader: (1)

Yep then CC companies hate people who pay off the balance every time !!
They probably do want you to go elsewhere & have someone who racks it up & pays of the minimum amount every month !

R.

MAC76

New card it is then Will get on to that now

r32

Dump them ............. quick before Xmas.

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

We are going the other way, the banks can't stand to see us not up to our noses in **** so they mither us with phone calls about how they can 'help' us.

MAC76

It really dont make sence to me.... they do make some money out of me because i dont pay off the balance in full every month..... Never mind there loss... my bank have just offerd me a much better rate and limit up to 10k

vava voom

iTrader: (6)

Lloyds Tsb did the same to me but when i said i was closeing the card account they upgraded me to a advantage account with £11k limit

P1Fanatic

Barclaycard are hopeless. A while back I signed up for a card and it came with £300 credit limit. I was gonna use it for 0% balance transfers so pretty pointless. Rang them up and they said the credit would be reviewed in 6 months. No chance so cancelled there and then - had the card less than 1 day lol - didnt even try and change my mind.

Simon

Suresh

When you close your account with Barclaycard (which you are going to do, right?) do so with effect the day before the next renewal date. Until then leave a small credit balance with them of a couple of pence so they have to keep sending statements and also will be forced to issue you with a cheque for your refund.

MAC76

Nice idea

I will DEFINATLEY do that

Suresh

It will make bugger all difference to them, but it'll make you feel much better

pslewis

Anyone with BarclayCard need their bumps feeling!

Get a CASHBACK Card !!!!!

lozgti

Haven't Barclaycard just written off about a billion quid in debts they don't think they will recover?

Maybe they are cutting back

Wurzel

iTrader: (1)

Credit cards here are a waste of time as they are linked to your bank account, so your balance is paid off every month as the CC company debit the full amount from your account each month.

Plus hardly anybody here takes credit cards, the majority of transactions are done by cash or EC card.

So if you ever want to get rich quick then mug a German as they will probably have shed loads of cash on them.

jasey

When are you next over in the UK

KiwiGTI

The Germans are obviously using them as they were originally intended. The British (and US/Aus etc) have gone way beyond that now with their consumer credit frenzy. But the banks are really starting to reap what they've sown. Nice to see a few of them being shunned by investors as the bad debts are coming to haunt them. They are now having to increase their coverage of bad debts by substantial amounts.

Suresh

Indeed BIS II will [rightly] see that they do, even though BIS I in effect encouraged them to sell good quality credits and take on bad ones.

Are you in banking Mr. Kiwi?

KiwiGTI

Not really, I'm in IT but the majority of my experience is with settlement systems, clearing banks and systems that deal with interbank transactions.

James Neill

iTrader: (1)

Basel II (or Capital Requirements Directive as I think it's called now) will make the Bank use the following maths to work our how much capital they need to put aside for bad debts.

Probability of Default (PD) x Exposure (E) x Loss Given Default (LGD%) x a few other things

PD = Likely chance of a default (ie, you not paying your credit card)
E = What is the bank exposed to - may be more than the amount you defaulted on
LGD = what will the bank really lose if you don't pay. Takes in to account what they can recover and what costs they fork out to recover any monies.

The banks that follow the most advanced approach (Internal Ratings Based) have to demonstrate how they use past experience to essentially maintain a predictive model for future lending. The best banks have the best historical data to make the best lending decisions (and prove it) and therefore lower their capital requirements (ie, amount of liquid assets they need to keep to one side). The crap banks have to make use of a simpler set of maths (Standardised) but with some of the variables fixed by regulators. The carrot on the stick is that the Standardised approach means a high capital requriement so this drives banks to improve their standards, data and processes so they can qualify for IRB.

So rest assured that you'll all be a set of numbers in a computer system somewhere. Actually for Retail Lending (like credit cards) each of us gets assigned to a "PD pool" that ranks us in a scale of PDs. The maths is then done by pool rather than on an individual basis.

All quite interesting actually. Here endeth the lesson

speed demoness

I had the same problem a month or two ago... and got exactly the same answer as you did !!!!!!!
they reduced mine from £1800 down to £270

Charlie WRXSTI

Yep me too I have gone from £2700 to £700 WTF 2 weeks before xmas

2000TLondon

At the end of the day at least you won't be owing them too much come January! I think it's actually a refreshing change for a CC company to reduce a limit, rather than increase without asking, and constantly offer you new products, and try and drag you into as much debt as possible!

You'll probably do well through this as a new card will give you a very low, or zero % intro rate for six months, so get spending!

druddle

MAC76 - Go for the Morgan Stanley card, at the moment they are offering 3% cashback on new purchases.

Dave

The Zohan

Whilst i am not a big fan of Barclaycard however, it appears that no matter what they do they are wrong.

They put limits up and people moan that they are not being responsible lenders.

They reduce them and they are wrong as well.

You cannot have it both ways

Terminator X

iTrader: (7)

Sounds like they don't want your custom for some reason ... go elsewhere as others have suggested.

TX.

Dracoro

I've got some mbna/abbey credit card, every few months the credit limit goes up I'm upt to something like £9/£10k at the moment. I never use the darn thing Hey, ho it's there if I ever need it.