A lot of the financial institutionas seem to be unwilling to lend money at the moment but what's happened to me seems a tad excessive. I have had a Goldfish card for quite a few years now. Until recently, there was a limit on it of around 5 grand. Anyway, som,e weeks back I screwed up and forgot to pay my bill. I had the money but I didn't have a direct debit set up and due to going through a chaotic phase in my life, I simply forgot to pay it. OK. No problem. Got stabbed for the mandatory £12. My fault. Bang to rights. Anyway, the day after the bill arrived (with the £12 "NOT" penalty charge :-) ) came a letter from Goldfish reducing my limit to about 2 grand. This was slightly more than I owed on the card. I don't suppose they can really reduce it below what I owe - or at least they can't do so and impose overlimit penalties anyway. I have also had a Sainsbury card for some years and they were doing a deal at around 7.9% for life of balance. So I switchedsome credit card debt over to this deal - which included clearing the Goldfish card. Even as I was doing it I wondered to myself if they would take the opportunity to further reduce my limit. Sure enough, today I got a bill from them and another letter further reducing my limit to £500. Well I'm glad they allowed me SOME limit because I pay an internet phone bill with it and an internet file storage service (no more than a tenner a month between them). This further reduction was made even though I had made no more transgressions. I have had this card maybe 10 years in all and in that time maybe I have made three late payments. Not good but hardly serious stuff really. So, does anyone know why Goldfish are getting nervous more quickly than other card lenders? Their letters say that they keep regular checks with Experian and Equifax and that they use that info to set limits. I hope that these checks aren't being recorded as having too many checks can work against someone's credit rating. I assume they are entitled to make such checks without my consent? The funny thing is that, on paper, the amount I owe looks quite horrendous compared to my income. However, as I am self-employed, the last available income info on me was a low profit year due to investing a lot of borrowed money on new equipment. However, what they can't yet see is that because of that new equipment, my income soared in the first year of having it and it is soaring again this year. Indeed, although it's too early in my current accounting year to be too accurate, there is a very real possibility that my income will double over the two year period. I'm really looking forward to getting these plastic monsters paid off over the next 2 - 3 years. I'm not a spendthrift either. All that happened really was that I was in a bad relationship and I should have learned to say "no" a lot sooner than I did. I eventually left her. I could have coped with the debt incurred from that. It wasn't pretty but it was manageable. The problem was that within a year of leaving, I was diagnosed with a major illness and virtually needed 6 months off in order to have some heavy duty medical treatment. 6 months off work when already struggling is potentially lethal financially - but not as potentially lethal as the didease I needed to treat. I figured that even if I ended up bankrupt and homeless, at least I would probably still be alive. I still have plenty of cards with little or zero balances on them (from my card tarting days) so that probably works against me too. Because I never use them, there is a temptation to just take the scissors to them. However, it would be silly to deprive myself of access to ALL credit in case my work van needs a big repair.
Has anyone else heard of Goldfish goimng through a "squeaky bum" time?