James Neill

iTrader: (1)

Thought I was being clever by using a 0% deal on my MBNA credit card to transfer £12,000 to my offset mortgage with the intention of paying it back again prior to the end of the deal.

But I've now got hit with an interest charge - even though my additional purchases made on the card over the £12k were paid off in full by the due date.

The MBNA guy on the phone said that any payment made is used against the part of the balance with lowest interest rate. The money I paid was used against the £12k, whilst the purchases I'd made incurred an interest charge! Now why the hell would I want that? What's the point of taking a 0% deal if they then go and charge you interest on purchases even when you pay them off within the time limit?

I told him that I hadn't been made aware of this when the offers were sent to me. He said the rule was in the T&Cs that came with the card (not the offer!) - but couldn't tell me exactly where.

As far as I'm concerned this is misselling - I get so much junk about these 0% deals and then when I finally take them up on the offer and continue to pay off any purchases in full and on time I get charged bloody interest.

How peeved am I?? I've not had a debt on my credit card for years!!

suprabeast

it does say that in the terms and conditions, i thought that was common knowledge, thats how they get you back!!

It give you an order of what gets paid first, eg lowest interest rate stuff first, then purchases

James Neill

iTrader: (1)

I have thought about tearing the car up. But I think what I'll to do is stop using the card for purchases. Max out the balance transfer (£30k should do it) and use it to offset my mortgage - must be worth £40 a month in savings for the next few months. So net-net I've have got more out of them that they got out of me. Then I'll tear it up and feel much better about it

suprabeast

I'm surprised they didnt charge you a 2% handling fee as well for the transfer!

The thing to be careful of when maxing your card out is that 30k is going to need a 900 quid minimum payment !

Vapid

Write them a letter and you'll get the interest charges quoshed. I'd say just ring them but it sounds as if you have difficulty arguing your case verbally.

MBNA are well known for trying this on and then backing down. In my own case I set up the card to pay the balance off in full the moment interest became chargeable. The fcuked up didn't do this, tried to charge me interest on a balance of £45K then backpedalled furiously when I talked to them cancelled all charges and finally sent me a 'wine gift' to apologise-incidentally the wine was crap.

James Neill

iTrader: (1)

No, not really. Just got nowhere when I asked to speak to a senior manager. Ended up sitting on the line for ages before hanging up. Will write them a letter now instead.

Edcase

MBNA have been utterly useless to me, I just paid of a 5-figure balance and closed my account only last week, replaced with a Natwest Black card

Kuohu

I too thought that this was common practice on most credit cards with BT deals. You must never spend on a card that you have done a balance transfer onto.

You could try to get the interest refunded, but I think you'll be lucky. The order of repayment priorities will be in your terms and conditions.

Tim-Grove

MBNA are idiots I applied for a card 3 weeks ago with a 0% for 12 months balance transfer offer. I did the transfer over the phone and they some how managed to get the credit card number I gave them totally wrong (not just 1 or 2 digits out but completely wrong) and lost the payment. So I ended up having two cards with identical balances on them. They rang me last Friday saying they'd sorted it (its took 3 weeks). I took a look on my online accounts for the two cards yesterday and they STILL haven’t sorted it and now I have double the amount on the new card and they STILL haven’t transferred the balance off my old card. Who the hell do they employ in these places?? They are complete to55ers!! Its really cant be that taxing can it??

Bakerman

Harsh as people sound they are right, this is normally standard terms and designed to get you to pay. There are a number of golden, I repeat, golden rules for credit cards, one being

- if you get a balance transfer card never ever spend on it

Next time do what I do, have specific cards for specific purposes and stick to them, that way you can indeed make quite a bit of cash for just being aware.