Please help, fellow stoozers!!!

A question about : Please help, fellow stoozers!!!

Oh dear, it was all going so well..... started stoozing in Feb and have several cards now, up to about 60k. egg card balance needs transferring, so applied to Cap One 18mth. Turned down, offered 6mth with a paltry Ј200 limit.

Just applied on line to Intelligent Finance and NSPCC card......both rejected.

What is going on, and what do I do? Looks like I might have to pay Egg off from my stooze pot rather than transfer?

From reading other posts, I presume these 3 rejections are counting heavily against me.

I have a Virgin card with 16k limit, and an assortment of others.

Please can someone suggest how to proceed, because I was enjoying this very much!

Cheers Eastofeden

Best answers:

• Calm down, calm down. First of all, you have built up a big stooz pot in the space of only 5 months - that is pretty good going, but you may be going too fast. It sounds to me that you have not fully done your research by looking at all the available advice (see Martin's Stoozing link above and read the content of the stoozing website) because it doesn't look as if you have paced yourself.
  Also, you need to be more specific about what cards you have and their balances. For example, do you already have a Halifax or Bank of Scotland card ? If so, then it would not be too surprising that IF and NSPCC rejected you because they are all owned by the same company.
  Post more detail about what cards you have, what limits you have, when you applied for them and we can provide more help. My guess is that you have gone too far too fast and need to slow down.
  BTW - it is not the rejections that count against you, it is the number of credit checks. So assuming your average balance on your credit cards is Ј10,000 then you have 6 stoozing cards plus 3 rejections - meaning that you have had 9 credit checks in 5 months. That is twice as many as you should if you want to protect your credit record in any way.
  Clariman
• Do as suggested by Clariman but maybe pay off the Egg and make 2 apps in a few monts (probably best to wait at least 4), I moved fairly quick too and was lucky, was tempted to carry on but am holding off for a few months as I was getting lower and lower credit limits offered.
• Thanks to both of you. This is the situation,
  Egg 15000 feb 05 until 1.10.05
  Visa Platinum 3200 mar 05 until feb 06
  Visa platinum monument 9500 apr 05 until 1.11.05
  amazon (halifax) 9500 until 1.10.05
  NUT (Bank of Scotland) 9500 apr 05 until 4.1.06
  Virgin 15225 jun 05 until feb 06
  And you are quite right, I can see that I have got a bit carried away, and not really researched my cards thoroughly. My salary is about 46k if that helps.
  I realise I probably can't add much more, but I would like to shuffle rather than just pay them off, if you see what I mean. The priority is Egg, which obviously I want to keep for it's anniversary use. But Amazon also on the horizon.
  please make whatever suggestions you can, because this is something I enjoy tremendously.
• When I started stoozing, I couldn't renew my egg card with another 0% deal. It was the first card that I had needed to renew but I had to pay it off instead. I suspect that credit card companies look at your available credit, compare how much of it has been used and how quickly, and measure how 'desperate' you are. My credit file would have shown hardly any available credit, and then loads and all used up to the max very quickly. Maybe if you pay off your egg it will look like you aren't so desperate and in a few months you will be OK to carry on (steadily) stoozing. This worked for me anyway. Paying off your egg card isn't so bad anyway because it is quick and easy to create a new balance to transfer off it anytime you want.
• my visa platinum card is from barclaycard. thank you all for your helpfull replies. Your advice has been greatly appreciated. Anymore from anyone else, would be most welcome.
  Cheers
  EaStOfEdEn
• There were rumours that the banks were not lending to people with more credit card debt than their income or with more than 6 cards so you may find it really tough to shuffle.
  Probably best to repay a few, wait 3 months for the applications to clear and then make one or two applications to new providers, capital 1 perhaps. You will probably have to pay fees next time around too.
• Just curious on others thoughts on this.....but does anyone reckon that having a card or two unused with lots of available credit to spare that you have held for a looooong period of time - say 5...10+ years would negate the apparent and obvious indications of a stoozer whose credit file/report would blatently show cards being opened/closed/rotated every 3/6/9/12 months...?
  The emphasis on my question is the fact you have seriously held cards for ages, and not so much the available credit remaining...
  Just thinking out aloud...
  Lopo