Personal Finance

Credit Card Application and Income & Employment Verification

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Newbie
Oct 19, 2013
12 posts
Surrey

Credit Card Application and Income & Employment Verification

I am interested in applying for an MBNA card. I notice that most require a $35,000 annual income. However, when I talk to the online chat support, the agents tell me to go ahead an apply anyways, irregardless of what my employment/student status is.

I ask because I have just landed a position with an annual salary of $29,000. I had a few questions regarding the process.

1) The application asks for employer information details. Does MBNA actually call and verify the information I provide? I ask because I would like to know if I should inform my HR department that they should expect a call from MBNA...

2) What are my chances of getting accepted for say the Smart Cash MC? I currently hold a TD Visa and have very good credit score (760). I always pay off my balance in full, and have never missed a payment date. However, my household (it is just me in the household) annual income is much less than the stated "household income must be greater than $35,000." Taking all this into account, what is the likely hood of getting approved?

3) My greatest fear in this situation: If I am declined for the credit card due to insufficient annual income, would it affect my credit score?
12 replies
Jr. Member
Jul 20, 2013
196 posts
22 upvotes
pplemr wrote: 1) The application asks for employer information details. Does MBNA actually call and verify the information I provide? I ask because I would like to know if I should inform my HR department that they should expect a call from MBNA...
Rarely do credit card companies actually verify the employer information details you've given them. Then again it depends from issuer to issuer.
pplemr wrote: 2) What are my chances of getting accepted for say the Smart Cash MC? I currently hold a TD Visa and have very good credit score (760). I always pay off my balance in full, and have never missed a payment date. However, my household (it is just me in the household) annual income is much less than the stated "household income must be greater than $35,000." Taking all this into account, what is the likely hood of getting approved?
IIRC, that's just there to satisfy the requirement that the feds handed down to CC companies on not handing out "premium" credit cards like candy to anybody. They're more than glad to give that credit card to you.
pplemr wrote: 3) My greatest fear in this situation: If I am declined for the credit card due to insufficient annual income, would it affect my credit score?
Why worry about your credit score when you pay your bills on time anyways? If you're getting a mortgage soon then it may be an issue, otherwise no.
Deal Fanatic
User avatar
Mar 31, 2007
5068 posts
3305 upvotes
Hey fellow Surrey-ian,

Usually a student can slip past a few of the income barriers as long as we're not talking some razzle dazzle platinum card of sorts. Chances are you'd just get a low credit limit.
That said, some credit card issuers more-so look at the length of your credit history (ie: how long you've had your oldest cc). Never missing a payment is great, but let's be honest if you have say... 4 months of credit history, it's not quite as impressive of a feat.

That aside, your chances are reasonably good on a Smart Cash as it's not particularly a high end card, plus they're fairly lenient. I'd probably just lie and bump your income to 36K, 37K , 42K if you want to be extra safe. Truthfully, I've lied about my income all the time and if it references household income you can usually milk the # even further.

In terms of contacting your employer, I have never experienced it myself and I have maybe 7 cards. Once again though, I tend to put a fake number or friend/fam because I wouldn't actually want my actual employer getting bothered over something like this.
Deal Expert
Mar 25, 2005
22691 posts
3682 upvotes
pplemr wrote: I am interested in applying for an MBNA card. I notice that most require a $35,000 annual income. However, when I talk to the online chat support, the agents tell me to go ahead an apply anyways, irregardless of what my employment/student status is.

I ask because I have just landed a position with an annual salary of $29,000. I had a few questions regarding the process.

1) The application asks for employer information details. Does MBNA actually call and verify the information I provide? I ask because I would like to know if I should inform my HR department that they should expect a call from MBNA...

2) What are my chances of getting accepted for say the Smart Cash MC? I currently hold a TD Visa and have very good credit score (760). I always pay off my balance in full, and have never missed a payment date. However, my household (it is just me in the household) annual income is much less than the stated "household income must be greater than $35,000." Taking all this into account, what is the likely hood of getting approved?

3) My greatest fear in this situation: If I am declined for the credit card due to insufficient annual income, would it affect my credit score?
MBNA waves income reqs for students, though you will have a low credit limit.
Deal Addict
Feb 10, 2013
4764 posts
1311 upvotes
Richmond
my situation is a bit weird though, I am a student. Household income is 35,000 just barely after adding in my parents retirement income from the govt with my own part time job income.
Deal Expert
User avatar
Aug 18, 2005
21222 posts
5938 upvotes
Burlington-Hamilton
pplemr wrote: I am interested in applying for an MBNA card. I notice that most require a $35,000 annual income. However, when I talk to the online chat support, the agents tell me to go ahead an apply anyways, irregardless of what my employment/student status is.

I ask because I have just landed a position with an annual salary of $29,000. I had a few questions regarding the process.

1) The application asks for employer information details. Does MBNA actually call and verify the information I provide? I ask because I would like to know if I should inform my HR department that they should expect a call from MBNA...

2) What are my chances of getting accepted for say the Smart Cash MC? I currently hold a TD Visa and have very good credit score (760). I always pay off my balance in full, and have never missed a payment date. However, my household (it is just me in the household) annual income is much less than the stated "household income must be greater than $35,000." Taking all this into account, what is the likely hood of getting approved?

3) My greatest fear in this situation: If I am declined for the credit card due to insufficient annual income, would it affect my credit score?
1. Only once in my life have I had the CC issuer actually verify anything with the employer, and it was for my FIRST credit card ever (RBC). The just called and told me to come pick up the card at the branch... so the card had already been approved and manufactured. I guess this formed a confirmation that I actually worked there.

2. Not sure.

3. If you are declined, it will have a temporary negative effect on your credit because of the recent inquiry. This goes away after a few months. Also, declined cards don't show up on your credit.

What's annoying is that in other forms and applications, you might have to answer: Have you ever been denied credit? (YES/NO) I recently had this one on some military-related background check, but it was only within the last 5 years or something so I said NO.
- casual gastronomist -
Newbie
Dec 14, 2018
1 posts
5 upvotes
1. Almost never do they verify it (I work at a credit card company). The question is usually on the application because collections departments lean hard on their sales teams to get that information just in case you default on your credit card payments. There is no way usually that they would know if you lie (not saying you should, but also not saying you shouldn't).
2. The income requirements have nothing to do with "the feds" as someone else states. MasterCard and Visa set out these limits as part of their risk tolerance policies. They want to ensure that there is some level of uniformity among the banks/credit providers who are selling their cards... For example, if MBNA declines you for a World Elite MasterCard with $90k income but Capital One approved you for it at $60k, customers get confused and the World Elite MasterCard gets devalued (as the suits would describe it, "it dilutes the brand value of the World Elite MasterCard"). So MasterCard sets out limits that everyone who provides MasterCards must follow. The $35k income requirement is one of those.
3. There are hundreds of sites and articles describing how your credit score is calculated. Most credit bureaus weight the number of recent credit checks as 10% of your score. Notice I said the NUMBER of checks, not the outcome. It doesn't matter whether you get approved or declined. If you have applied for several...for example let's say 3 or more...credit cards in a short space of time like 6 months, credit bureaus interpret this as you wanting credit but not getting access to it (even if you were approved for all those cards). To their old school mentality, why would anyone apply for more credit if they already got access to it? Yes, they still live in the last century. So 1 single application, whether approved or declined, will only impact you by a few points (less than 10) and the effect is temporary... But if you apply to a bunch in a short span of time, it'll have a bigger impact and last longer. But remember, even in the very worst case where you apply to dozens of credit products in a few weeks, the worst that can happen is your score drops by a full 10% (80-90 points), or however much the bureaus weight this component of your score.

Good luck.
Member
Jun 4, 2018
323 posts
212 upvotes
Applied for CIBC aeroplan infinite and got an email asking for income verification of 60K+ personal income

Found it pretty strange since this is not even a infinite privilege card, which asks for 100K personal/200K household
Deal Addict
Jul 21, 2004
1421 posts
371 upvotes
Usually most entry level CC they don’t really ask for income verification. If you have a good credit score and credit history. 35k income level cc wouldn’t be much of an issue. If you are applying for fancy platinum etc then they might ask employment info etc to verify your income that way.

Irregardless accepted Or rejected it will have a slight impacted on your credit score because of inquiry.

Now having said that I got rejected for PCF MC while I have over 800 pt on credit score. Go figure. And my banker buddy had a good laugh but couldn’t figure it out why

Good luck
Deal Addict
Oct 27, 2012
3056 posts
4989 upvotes
Toronto
Scotia is literally the only bank that's ever verified income and employment to get a credit card out of almost 100 card applications. That was despite me having my paycheque deposited into my account with Scotia.

Lines of credit and mortgage were a different story.
Deal Guru
User avatar
Aug 24, 2016
11614 posts
13933 upvotes
Win-ter-peg
koft wrote: Now having said that I got rejected for PCF MC while I have over 800 pt on credit score. Go figure. And my banker buddy had a good laugh but couldn’t figure it out why
PCF is among the easiest lender to get a credit card from.
They don’t cater to bad credit individuals, and give credit equally among all credit levels.
If you were declined with an excellent credit score, it was likely information mismatch or something like that going on with whatever bureau they pulled.
Deal Addict
Jul 21, 2004
1421 posts
371 upvotes
coolintheshade wrote:
If you were declined with an excellent credit score, it was likely information mismatch or something like that going on with whatever bureau they pulled.
Probably, but didn't really care, was just getting it for the point promote and the occasional Loblaw/Shoppers Runs
Deal Fanatic
Apr 16, 2007
8134 posts
3485 upvotes
Financial District B…
pplemr wrote: I am interested in applying for an MBNA card. I notice that most require a $35,000 annual income. However, when I talk to the online chat support, the agents tell me to go ahead an apply anyways, irregardless of what my employment/student status is.
Many if not all the lenders have some sort of income verifier based on job disclosure so there's no need to call employer HR/payroll.
We use Payscale Canada so suspect most do as well
----------------------------Licensed Credit Bureau member, S1, FI Automotive, CCP forums most banned = x 13 and counting, guess who that is?... stomped to the curb once again

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