Any experience with Barclays Bank credit?

[flexin222]

I ask because I had a Barclays credit card. Barclays sold my account off to Mercury credit card, which is ran by First Bank and Trust, South Dakota. In my opinion, Mercury credit cards suck! I truly believe they lure customers into a false sense of security by giving higher CL's. It's all a ploy to make money off of their customers not used to the limits and going into serious debt.

So, back to Barclays which I think write off certain customers that don't meet their ungodly criteria. I can remember having issues also with Barclays not receiving my payments and trying to late fee me to death. They also had funny technical issues with my payment dates, and my dates not showing. I actually called them out on that! I now research the banks affiliated with credit cards and their practices. Due diligence ladies and gents...

[FireMedic1]

Dont like to see any poster go without answer. Years ago on here Barclays was doing ok with posters. Then they're idiotic antics started to kick in and you dont see much at all about them on here any longer. That should answer your question.

[flexin222]

Thanks FireMedic1...

[krielly]

I had an old Juniper credit card which I obtained shortly after BK 13 which was discharged in 2010. At some point it was converted to a Barclays card. I have had the card for several years now, and have even taken advantage of a Barclay's personal loan which was a very streamlined process with a decent interest rate (6.99% for 60 mos). I've never had any issues with payments posting, etc...

[iced]

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@FireMedic1 wrote:

Dont like to see any poster go without answer. Years ago on here Barclays was doing ok with posters. Then they're idiotic antics started to kick in and you dont see much at all about them on here any longer. That should answer your question.

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They're one of the more conservative and skittish banks when it comes to pulling back credit extended, but that's hardly idiotic.

People tend to think they're more deserving of and responsible with credit than they are (go Dunning-Kruger yet again). The high utilization and/or credit chasing that people who get AA'd by Barclays do is the more idiotic antic than any AA Barclays may have taken. There's no reason for someone who doesn't suffer from these problems to be afraid of Barclays.

A discussion on the merits of their products in the first place is another matter, but that's a topic for a different thread.

[Traveler101]

Sorry Iced, I have to disagree with you. My reports are virtully nil in inquiries. Been with barclays just under 4 years. Ive been very sluggish and selective about accounts I open. They constantly sp me via viewing my reports. Ironic is they only use tu for new and cli. But sp all 3. Of 6 of my cc, only 1 shows a bal. Overall uti is 5%. One with a bal is at 12%. I use barclays as an everyday spend, and paid to "0" before statement hits. Its been 3years and 7 months since an increase in cl. Apparently, relationships with them have insignificant bearing.

[iced]

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@Traveler101 wrote:
Sorry Iced, I have to disagree with you. My reports are virtully nil in inquiries. Been with barclays just under 4 years. Ive been very sluggish and selective about accounts I open. They constantly sp me via viewing my reports. Ironic is they only use tu for new and cli. But sp all 3. Of 6 of my cc, only 1 shows a bal. Overall uti is 5%. One with a bal is at 12%. I use barclays as an everyday spend, and paid to "0" before statement hits. Its been 3years and 7 months since an increase in cl. Apparently, relationships with them have insignificant bearing.

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Welcome to disagree, of course.

We're never entitled to an unsolicited/SP CLI from creditors, regardless of how good our credit or payment history with them is. If that's the bar for idiotic antics, then I imagine you have a low opinion of Chase as well.

As I see it, there's a philosophy that's somewhat prevalent around here that credit with banks is a game with rules that can be mastered and optimized, and people extrapolate that if they do A, B will always happen. In some cases, it's predictable enough that B indeed does happen with some regularity, and it immediately gets adopted by the community as an exploitable loophole to that bank (a la AmEx's 3X, day-61 SP CLIs, limits to stay under with bank X to avoid FR, etc). Those banks also become rather popular around here. The banks that don't have consistent systems that can be predicted and thus exploited...well, those are the Barclays of the community that receive the brunt of frustration and derision from those upset that there isn't some easily followed and repeatable guidebook on building up a large CL or avoiding AA with them. Just because such banks are more unpredictable doesn't mean they're stupid.

Likewise with relatonships; the idea that we build some bond with a bank that in turn begets us better offers or higher credit is also false. We're numbers plugged into a risk assessment, nothing more. If the numbers come back saying we're wildly profitable, they'll like us. If they don't, they'll ignore us. If the numbers come back risky, they'll drop us like a bad habit. Those relationships serve nothing more than to give them additional data points to assess which risk bucket of theirs we should be filed under.

[longtimelurker]

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@iced wrote:

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@Traveler101 wrote:
Sorry Iced, I have to disagree with you. My reports are virtully nil in inquiries. Been with barclays just under 4 years. Ive been very sluggish and selective about accounts I open. They constantly sp me via viewing my reports. Ironic is they only use tu for new and cli. But sp all 3. Of 6 of my cc, only 1 shows a bal. Overall uti is 5%. One with a bal is at 12%. I use barclays as an everyday spend, and paid to "0" before statement hits. Its been 3years and 7 months since an increase in cl. Apparently, relationships with them have insignificant bearing.

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Welcome to disagree, of course.

We're never entitled to an unsolicited/SP CLI from creditors, regardless of how good our credit or payment history with them is. If that's the bar for idiotic antics, then I imagine you have a low opinion of Chase as well.

As I see it, there's a philosophy that's somewhat prevalent around here that credit with banks is a game with rules that can be mastered and optimized, and people extrapolate that if they do A, B will always happen. In some cases, it's predictable enough that B indeed does happen with some regularity, and it immediately gets adopted by the community as an exploitable loophole to that bank (a la AmEx's 3X, day-61 SP CLIs, limits to stay under with bank X to avoid FR, etc). Those banks also become rather popular around here. The banks that don't have consistent systems that can be predicted and thus exploited...well, those are the Barclays of the community that receive the brunt of frustration and derision from those upset that there isn't some easily followed and repeatable guidebook on building up a large CL or avoiding AA with them. Just because such banks are more unpredictable doesn't mean they're stupid.

Likewise with relatonships; the idea that we build some bond with a bank that in turn begets us better offers or higher credit is also false. We're numbers plugged into a risk assessment, nothing more. If the numbers come back saying we're wildly profitable, they'll like us. If they don't, they'll ignore us. If the numbers come back risky, they'll drop us like a bad habit. Those relationships serve nothing more than to give them additional data points to assess which risk bucket of theirs we should be filed under.

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I mainly agree with this!  I think that Barclays is perhaps more skittish with a "typical Myfico profile" than other banks.   I would guess that more normal profiles don't experience issues.    Now that does mean that if you have several of the characteristics here (more credit cards than average in particular) it might be wiser to tread carefully with Barclays, but as iced says, that doesn't mean the bank is stupid.

Barclays PLC employees have certainly been found guilty of severe criminal charges (LIBOR manipulation and  price fixing of electricity, other energy, gold etc)   But hey, that's banks for you

[Anonymous]

Got the Apple card with them to purchase a Mac a couple of years ago but it pretty much stays in the sock drawer.

[Anonymous]

I have to say my Barclay JetBlue card experience has been positive. Cash advanced 4k, was auto-CLI'ed to 8k in a month. Noticing that they have a BT offer that I might use on my existing car loan I asked for a CLI to 15k - and they approved it!
Prior to the cash advance I hardly used the card.