Monthly Interest Has Pushed Me Over My Credit Limit

Cardinal-Red · 3 June 2005 at 11:10AM

Hi,

I have the brilliant Egg card and just recently took their 1.9% for three months offer up (it all adds up doesn't it!).

I transferred my entire credit limit (£6000) off, and now today they've issued me with my June statement, including the £5 interest. However this now means by balance is £6005 - over my credit limit - with no direct debit due for about 14 days from now.

Are they likely to try to charge me for this?

Thanks!

charlie12 · 3 June 2005 at 12:05PM

Quite possibly, yes.

I recommend that you make a debit card payment on the Egg site to cover the excess, say £6 (or £10 to be safe). That's the quickest way of getting funds into your account. Probably won't reach your account until Monday, but it's still quicker than a BACS payment.

dag_2 · 3 June 2005 at 8:48PM

Are they likely to try to charge me for this?

In my experience, it's very unusual for credit cards to charge an over-limit fee, when the only thing that put you over the limit was the statement interest. It's never happened to me, and I've never known it happen to anyone else.

Indeed - if they do charge you an overlimit fee, then it sort-of defeats the point of having a fixed credit limit. They may even be in breach of their terms and conditions. I believe you'd be able to get any such charge reversed very easily.

Keep us informed.

Cardinal-Red · 3 June 2005 at 9:13PM

I always assumed that's why cards never allowed you to balance transfer more than, say, 90-95% of your credit limit, Egg being one of the few exceptions it seems.

I will see shortly what happens - have sent a secure message to Egg to find out what they say...

smartsaver · 4 June 2005 at 8:20AM

Since charging a BT fee Egg now only allow 95% of credit limit to be BT'd. Maybe you could point out their error in allowing the BT to go through?

My son was charged an over the limit fee by interest that pushed his Barclaycard over his credit limit. He has since canx his card.

daveboy · 4 June 2005 at 9:10AM

Egg have only recently introduced a BT fee - the OP states that they recently took up the offer. Maybe Egg have made a mistake, maybe they haven't.

Interest is charged on a balance other than when there is a 0% offer (states the obvious).

I find it quite unbelievable that a) OP didn't stop to think that at 1.9% interest would be charged, therefore sending him/her over the limit, and b) smartsavers son chucked the toys out of the pram for exactly the same reason.

All that was needed was common sense. But I am yet to see someone admit they were to blame rather than the company, because that would be embarrassing.

Cardinal-Red · 4 June 2005 at 9:35AM

Daveboy,

I've been with Egg since November 2004 so I have the pre-fee card.

I'm not blaming the company, shirking my own role, or threatening to cancel anything with Egg.

I was merely interested in whether this kind of transaction will cause a fee to be charged...

dag_2 · 4 June 2005 at 12:08PM

I always assumed that's why cards never allowed you to balance transfer more than, say, 90-95% of your credit limit, Egg being one of the few exceptions it seems.

I realise that. Some cards let you transfer the full credit limit, whereas others only let you transfer 85%-95%.

All this really means is that your card has got two different credit limits - a higher one for purchases, and a slightly lower one for balance transfers. But it doesn't mean that they will charge an overlimit fee if you're pushed over the limit by interest.

My son was charged an over the limit fee by interest that pushed his Barclaycard over his credit limit.

That's interesting. Out of curiosity, which statement did the over-limit fee appear on? Was it the same statement where the interest was added? Or was it the one after it?

If the overlimit fee was charged on the same statement, then are you sure that it was only the interest that pushed him over? And that it wasn't because he'd made a purchase on the card before they had credited the payment he'd made for the previous statement?

This is one of the ways that credit card statements can be confusing. They almost always list the payments they've received during the statement period first, before the purchases, regardless of the order in which they actually happened. And to make it even more confusing, they show you a balance brought forward after the payments but before the purchases.

Laying it out in this way makes it easier for you to check that the interest they charged you, both on the current statement and the subsequent one, is correct - but it makes it harder to check overlimit fees.

So, at a first glance, it may look as though the monthly interest was the only thing that pushed the account over the limit - when it was actually pushed over by a purchase made before they processed the payment they received. The only way to tell is to check the dates.

However, if the overlimit fee appeared on the statement after the one where the interest was charged - then I strongly suspect that Barclaycard have made a mistake.

I'm not saying I don't believe you - I'm just saying, people seem to know other people that this has happened to - but no-one's saying that it's ever happened to themselves. Thanks.

dag_2 · 4 June 2005 at 12:22PM

I find it quite unbelievable that a) OP didn't stop to think that at 1.9% interest would be charged, therefore sending him/her over the limit, and b) smartsavers son chucked the toys out of the pram for exactly the same reason.

I see that Mr Chip On His Shoulder is out on day release again ...

Going back a bit ....

I transferred my entire credit limit (£6000) off, and now today they've issued me with my June statement, including the £5 interest. However this now means by balance is £6005 - over my credit limit - with no direct debit due for about 14 days from now.

If they were going to charge you an overlimit fee for it, then chances are they would have done it by now. Why would they not put the overlimit fee charge on the same statement as the transaction that pushed you over?

But they haven't done this. So they probably won't charge you at all.

I have never known a credit card company to charge an overlimit fee for a transaction which has already appeared on a previous statement, and I've never known it happen to anyone else either.

Hope that helps.

pinkfluffybabe · 4 June 2005 at 12:47PM

Hi

The same thing happened to me when i opened my egg card a couple of years ago - the interest sent me over.

They didnt charge me for it.

mary · 4 June 2005 at 1:01PM

I'm not sure how to make one of those blue "here" links come on the screen, but I started a thread along similar lines and have just added to it. Egg let me transfer the full !00% credit limit in my anniversary initially, but when I tried to push another credit card through it, it came up with only 95% was allowed, like the day after I tried. I queried by secure message and this was this morning's reply.

We have recently made amendments to balance transfer requests.

Your credit limit is ?15000.00.

The maximum balance transfer request is up to 95% of your authorised credit limit.

We have changed this to stop our customers from going over the authorised credit limit. Covering costs for any interest charges etc.

If you need any further assistance, please let me know.

Regards

Zoe McKean
Internet Customer Services

Hope this helps.

Monthly Interest Has Pushed Me Over My Credit Limit

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