S o as I mentioned, today I had a meeting with my bank business account manager. Foolishly, I polished my business plan and put on a suit, thinking that good impressions and planning still matter these days. (They don’t)
Catch22, Fun For All The Family
Well she didn’t want to see my business plan, and she wasn’t much interested in hearing about the business either, she suggested that I go to a ‘local business centre’ for that. What she was more than happy to do however, was put my loan application through her automated system (which I could have done myself, at home, wearing nothing more than a nipple-tassle).
So she tried to put through a business loan application for me, but it came back as ‘insufficient scoring’ – because the account has had very little activity it doesn’t have enough data to be assessed for a loan. Fair enough, but the reason for it not being very active is that I haven’t been able to take it full time until now, and the reason I haven’t been able to take it full time until now if because I need some startup finance, which brings us right back to the reason for the loan, and in turn the reason for the rejection.. and so on, and so forth. Useless.
Experian, The God Of Finance
So next we tried making the loan as ‘flexi-loan’ (means a use-as-much-as-you-need-&-only-pay-interest-on-what-you-borrow-loan) to my personal account, but for some reason that came back with an actual adverse credit rating.
No I have no idea why that might be, I must pay 20 bills a month, and they’re all on time, every time. I ordered a credit rating report before from Experian last year and all that they sent me (essentially) was 12 blank sheets of paper. There was just nothing in there, good, bad, or otherwise.
I’m really not sure what’s going on, but needless to say it was enough to halt her in the middle of her happy automated-process-ing. I don’t have much of a choice, so I’ve ordered another Experian report.. I think, all I had to do was sign up online and then it said something extremely vague about posting me my pin number. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Other News
In other news my office is now cleared out and looking a lot more like a nice work environment, and I have a client meeting tomorrow. So for now at least, I’m not short on work, but it would be really helpful if I could pickup my business loan and get the small amount of equipment that I need along with a bit of extra money as a ‘buffer’ in the event of a slow month or two.
You’re in England aren’t you? Do you have Business Gateway down there as they can give you about a grand I think.
Also IIRC applying to view your credit rating is marked against you on the rating (could be wrong), so if you’ve been in a good situation maybe viewing your credit ratings has been the only negative element.
I am in England! (West Sussex) I did know about the whole applying for credit cards reduces your credit rating thing, but I haven’t applied for anything in over a year. The only think that I can think of is that I have payment plan for my council tax, but they haven’t sent me any letters to suggest that there’s anything wrong with that. Oh well, I shall find out soon enough!