Credit card advice please...

dont let him get won

check the rate of interest on various cards on money supermarket or similar site,theres a massive range from 5% to 30 odd%.when he gets it tell him to clear the balance every month if possible.

use it flights holiday as you get compensation immediately

When buying any item up between the value of  £100 and £30,000 always pay at least £100 on your credit card.  The credit card company will give you a refund if things go wrong with your purchase.

What age is your son and why does he want credit?

Credit implies something good. In fact it's a loan at high interest rates.

Injera and Delt spot on .

You can get chargeback on debit cards, which is not the same as the protection a credit card has.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/visa-mastercard-chargeback

Does he not have a bank account? Having a credit card without a bank account seems a bit mad.

Banks are always trying to get you to take your cards and it makes paying the bill a bit easier, means he doesn't have to go through a whole load of security checks to prove who he is as they already know.

Is this anything to do with May trying to make sure people surfing dorty sites can prove they are adults and he's just making sure he's prepared

I used credit cards but pay if off so it's a debit but with the added security, but some people don't have the discipline and see it as free money. Used to work with a guy that tried the "moving the debt around around cards in a circle" trick .. with limited success.

Can be another Prob  JC if people fall ill Lose a Job etc  and the Credit is there ,they will use it  ,Hoping for better times ahead .... That do not always come ...

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The interest rates on credit cards as stated above are shocking though.

One thing to watch for is on a cash advance AFAIK you may start paying interest immediately on that part even if you are all payed up, and what they consider a cash advance may not be what YOU consider a cash advance ;)

credit rating fine if you pay off debt each month

miss or delay payments an your screwed

Two questions - How old is he and why does he need one?   and do you trust him?.   If you are satisfied with the answer to the need question, and the answer to the second is yes.  Simplest way will be to get him a supplementary/subsidiary card on your account.  Assuming his credit record is clean this will be easy and cheap. It has the added advantage that you will be able to monitor his spending and keep him in check if he wants to revolve. 

The only drawback to this is that a card in his own name will allow him to build up some level of credit history, which if decent will help him as he goes forward.

xmoneyx - "credit rating fine if you pay off debt each month" is not entirely true.  You are correct that missing or delaying payments will damage your rating, but remember Lenders want people to revolve (ie pay off the minimum every time on time) because that is how they make their money.  Credit Card companies hate customers who simply pay in full each month. Hth

thx

I ran a credit check on myself and I seem to remember it was traffic light based and a Green light on my card was good?
It had each month listed, and the colour beside them. That's how I remember it...

I should check again for free this time, now Equifax have leaked all our data onto the internet

Put him over you knee wearing your finest 'Scottish Widows' outifit & Spank him senseless until he crys .. HTH

Just Checking - Equifax are just one of FOUR Credit Reference Agencies used by the lenders.  Some of them use all four, some of them use one or two. All of them will combine the Agency information with their own statistical models to reach a credit decision.

Given this you could be reasonably excused for thinking that your Equifax score is not all its cracked up to be.   Remember that you are entitled by law for a £2 payment to see the records held on you by each agency, and to have any errors or misleading info corrected.

I understand that there are people who pay a monthly fee to some agencies for this information and some other services

An old pal of mine took out nine before the crunch. Maxed them all out and even then they were phoning him up to increase the limit.


Never bothered to look to see if he was council/private home. They got what they deserved....nothing. Pal said to me 'what can they do'? Well, nothing in Scotland. It was the citizens advice who told them all were unsecured 'loans'.

Over 20k IIRC.

Even with a good credit rating, have a go at getting one now...

I keep seeing on TV that in the US they seem to have one well defined "credit score" system and people know theirs and talk about it, and people know what a good one is and what a bad one is. We don't have any such thing? I think we have just "sound as a pound", "a little bit woooaahhh", and "Corbyn voter".

isn't the best way to check how much bank is willing to loan you

Just Checking - the US System is a little more advanced than ours but not much.  Lenders will use the FICO score in conjunction with their own models and statistical data. Because the FICO is composite score it is deemed more reliable than any individual company's credit score.

Wiki sums it up thus "The FICO score was first introduced in 1989 by FICO, then called Fair, Isaac, and Company.[3] The FICO model is used by the vast majority of banks and credit grantors, and is based on consumer credit files of the three national credit bureaus: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. Because a consumer's credit file may contain different information at each of the bureaus, FICO scores can vary depending on which bureau provides the information to FICO to generate the score".

stewarty b - Those were the days!!  Mind you you have misunderstood the CB advice - unsecured does not mean unenforceable!. I guess the guy may have had no assets and the debts were deemed unrecoverable. Surprising that one of the lenders did not make him bankrupt. Even so his credit rating is f ck d, at least for a while

I generally use Paypal (linked to a bank account) or a debit card to buy online.

I rarely use my credit card (which is in the Mrs name), which seems to get cancelled and re-issue by the bank on a regular basis due to the amount of fraud that goes on.

Thanks for good advice guys.

My son is in his late twenties (I guess you were thinking very young) and he's never felt he needs a credit card.

He's looking to re-mortgage his house in March '18, and wants to help to build his credit score, as he has only had finance for his cars.

His firm intention is to pay for fuel and groceries, but to pay it off before interest is added.

Also, as some have said on here, for the security of protection with other large purchases.

Money Saving Expert is always a good starting point for information on these sorts of things:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/credit-cards/


Reading Stewarty's post reminded me of a mate of mine who had a £6k limit on his card which he had maxed out and was having trouble making payments. He eventually bit the bullet and made an appointment to see his bank (from memory it was Halifax). After telling them he was having trouble their solution was to increase his limit by a few grand! Incredible.

needs to re mortgage pre March 18, if possible, before rate rise ...

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/mortgages/remortgage-guide

When he gets the card it should be quite simple to set up a direct debit to clear the balance before charges are incurred. Basically, this tells any credit check that yes this person has borrowed and yes this person has repaid said borrowing on a regular basis. As long as he keeps control in this way, it shouldn't matter what the interest rate is as he won't be paying any and future borrowing should be easier.

I have always had a cashback credit card for as long as the cashback offers came into existence. I was getting 1% cashback and so I bought all the essentials (food/fuel etc.) on the card, but obviously to make it worthwhile, one has to pay off the debt in full each month.

Cashback has now been reduced to 0.5%. You can find cards that offer more, but they all seem to have annual fees attached to them.

The best (for me) that I could find recently is the ASDA cashback card which returns 1% on everything I buy from any ASDA store or fuel station, but only 0.5% for purchases anywhere else.

stewarty b - Those were the days!!  Mind you you have misunderstood the CB advice - unsecured does not mean unenforceable!.


Forgot about this thread. He was actually taken to court by one bank and the sheriff deemed it unenforceable.


It's different in Scotland because the sheriff officers have virtually no powers like they do in England.

Scott & Co kept sending him letters and eventually gave up.

Reading Stewarty's post reminded me of a mate of mine who had a £6k limit on his card which he had maxed out and was having trouble making payments. He eventually bit the bullet and made an appointment to see his bank (from memory it was Halifax). After telling them he was having trouble their solution was to increase his limit by a few grand! Incredible.

and add ppi !

some folk still have not reclaimed...



some credit cards give excellent rates and no charges when you use them abroad, others are great
at home such as cash back cards, he may need to get 2.