How to advise someone on repairing their extremely bad credit. Out of options

[VladmirsPoutine]

I thought the thing to do here was to advise them to take out a credit card and rebuild their score that way, make purchases and pay off the amount every month without fail. Sounded pretty simple to me but they've checked back and no credit card company will accept them, even ostensibly those for people with bad credit

If they've even been written off by those companies then what other channels are there? AFAIK their credit score is in the 300s on experian and they're repaying a credit card which eventually went to a debt collection agency.

Time. If no one will take them now they just need to remain credit free from a couple of years

Thanks call, we did read somewhere about it taking 6 years to refresh itself or something and you're right. Time seems to be the only solution.

It's 6 years for a default to drop off. So if your friend has been told the previous account was defaulted and terminated then it will show for 6 years. Similar with a ccj or bankruptcy. Late payments/repayment plans would be less time

Have they actually made an application to some of the cards aimed at poor credit history and been rejected, eg Aqua, Vanquis, Capital One or have they just had an indication from an eligibility checker? Because the latter aren't definitive by any means.