When you apply for a credit card and it says they have to wait to make a decision. Does that usually mean you are denied?

yes.

no, most of them you need to wait to see if they accept because they are looking at your credit to see if they can except you.

@rossi: I’ve never applied for a credit card that didn’t have an instant decision.

there are a few that do need to wait for. at least here in Maine.

Credit cards usually look at your income to obligations ratio, your credit rating, and your income to figure out whether you’re approved or not. They also like to verify these things before committing one way or another. If they offer online applications with immediate responses, they usually have a range of criteria that means an instant approval, a range of criteria that means an instant rejection, and a range of criteria that means a human being has to review them.

Generally, if you are told that they can’t approve you immediately, it means that they can’t verify all of your information automatically (and thus are punting the application to a human being), that they can verify your information but you’re in the range of people who need human review, or that you’ve been rejected but they don’t want to tell you that immediately.

(This last is often used for store credit cards—the hope is that if the site says “We need to verify some information before we can extend you credit,” that you’ll complete the purchase using a card you already have.)

They are declined. It’s a nice way to say it.

Not always, but usually.

hey why was my response before removed?

@johnny: It probably wasn’t. If it was, we’d see ”Removed…” in it’s place. My guess is your answer was never recorded.

Hey johnny, I found your answer over in the Its December 2008 thread! Maybe you had two tabs of Fluther open and accidentally replied to the other one?

“So what is to stop someone from lying on these applications and saying they make twice as much as they make, then they are automatically approved? I’m not thinking of doing that but I actually have excellent credit and my income isnt terrible so I dont see why i would be denied.”

That’s why the credit card companies verify things. If the income you report isn’t in line with what they can automatically verify, they turn the application over to a human, who can do the necessary sleuthing to figure out where the discrepancy is.

Also, your income to obligations ratio matters too. If you have monthly mortgage, car, student loan, credit card payments that are more than a certain percentage of your income, the credit card companies won’t extend you further credit. This is why the people with really low credit card balances have really high credit card limits.

@dynamicduo – oh ha i have no idea how i did that! duh thats what i get for multi tasking at work heh – but oh maybe its my student loans that killed me ha

@Dynamicduo & Johnny 0313x: I saw that answer over in the other thread and thought WTF? Thanks for clearing that up!

haha yikes I need to be more careful about where I’m typing ha someone delete that other post ha