I'm American, and have no reason to believe the credit reporting services are aware of my physical location. This is evidenced by conversations I have had with various agencies (governmental, credit bureaus, etc.) over the past year.
> For comparison, I had a very easy time getting 3 unsecured cards back when I was a student with nearly zero income. It also helped that I had checking/savings accounts with the same banks and years of deposit history.
I've used the same primary bank for 20 years and counting.
So did you lie about your address on the credit card application? If not, that’s how the bank knows you don’t live in the US and that’s why you were rejected.
Lemme simply: Either you need credit history in the US or you need to live in the US. You fail both criteria. Maybe your rejection letter only mentions the first reason, but banks definitely issue cards (with very low limits like $2k) to students with zero history. Speaking from experience.
> same primary bank for 20 years
Then walk in there and apply for a card after you get back in the US.
> So did you lie about your address on the credit card application? If not, that’s how the bank knows you don’t live in the US and that’s why you were rejected.
I didn't lie on anything, and frankly a bit offended you would even assume such. I travel back and forth to the US, often. My home address (one of the properties my family owns, and where I lived my entire childhood) is the one I use on everything US related. It's my actual physical address in the US.
People can have multiple residences across countries. Is that "simple" enough to understand?
Is your name on any of the house items like utility bills, deeds, etc...? Where do you pay taxes? How do you pay for things while living outside the US? Are you employed by a US company?
Keep in mind the people you speak to on the phone have no idea what goes into the model. They mostly read the same score/rejection that you do. My guess is the model is picking up signals you aren't in the US and that's causing the rejection.
Not my intention. IMO my tone matches your first post re “The entire system is broken”.
> It's my actual physical address in the US.
Ah I wish you mentioned that. In that case I’m not sure why you’d be rejected by every bank. My understanding is that if you don’t get auto-approved based on your credit history the bank has to use its own homegrown risk assessment which is a lot more conservative. Maybe the internal tool instantly rejected the application because your IP address didn’t match your address? Try calling and asking them (not the front line CSR, but a credit analyst that can override the software):
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/credit-cards/credit-card-reco...
https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Card-Applications/Ba...
> However, I qualify for zero unsecured credit cards.
That’s normal. You don’t live in the US so American banks have zero recourse if you decide to default.
For comparison, I had a very easy time getting 3 unsecured cards back when I was a 18 year old student with nearly zero income. It also helped that I had checking/savings accounts with the same banks and years of deposit history.
> they do a credit check, which for some reason has a negative impact on your credit score
You lose a few points, but hard pulls are the smallest component of your score. You can easily apply for 6 cards (2 per bureau) every 6 months before you start getting rejected. The “some reason” is obviously because people with many hard pulls are slightly more likely to default. IMO there’s no point complaining about losing 5 points from hard pulls when you’re losing 500 points because your AAoA (average age of accounts) is zero and no bank wants to take a leap of faith with someone they’ll never be able to put pressure on.