Warning...Virgin Credit Card...plaese read

Chris1962blue

A note of caution... I recently received a letter from Virgin stating that their APR is going up to....wait for it...27.9% !!!... and the minimum monthly payment will now be 5% of balance!:eek:

Now off to apply for 0% balance transfer card pretty damn quick!

You work hard for your cash...make "them" do the same!

bethanyrayne

Chris1962blue wrote: »

A note of caution... I recently received a letter from Virgin stating that their APR is going up to....wait for it...27.9% !!!... and the minimum monthly payment will now be 5% of balance!:eek:

Now off to apply for 0% balance transfer card pretty damn quick!

You work hard for your cash...make "them" do the same!

Sorry, Hardly a warning on this forum as this has been happening for quite some time and is well documented on this site unofficially.

Unfortunately, MSE has failed to make it's users aware of MBNA practices. I can only assume their silence is because of the genorous commisions they recieve from pushing the lambs towards MBNAs slaughter house.

clio

Here,s a previous post about changes to mbna's T&c,s it does not mention the rise in apr, so is this rise for everyone or just you Chris.???
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=12058813&posted=1

DestroyingAngel_2

I think you will find that MBNA/Virgin treat all their customers as individuals, and that no two people will have the same APRs or promotions. That's only fair, as everyone's different so why should we all be treated the same?

MSE_Martin

bethanyrayne wrote: »

Sorry, Hardly a warning on this forum as this has been happening for quite some time and is well documented on this site unofficially.

Unfortunately, MSE has failed to make it's users aware of MBNA practices. I can only assume their silence is because of the genorous commisions they recieve from pushing the lambs towards MBNAs slaughter house.

Hi

I am struggling to see what the accusation is here. MSE only ever writes whats the best way to save money. Currently the only prime link to BT cards are for best balance transfers... the article is very specific about using th ecards for the BT, never spending oin them then shifting the debt elsewhere.

All card companies play dodgy tricks on their existing customers... yet if you follow the right practices you avoid them. MSE is here to show people the right way to do things within a recipe - there's simply no way to communicate every single problem any other way.

If the poster who's making these defamatory comments would like to explain and suggest what in practice is wrong with what MSE is saying over MBNA then I'd be more than happy to look at it and amend if it helps people save money.

Martin

Kavanne

bethanyrayne wrote: »

Unfortunately, MSE has failed to make it's users aware of MBNA practices. I can only assume their silence is because of the genorous commisions they recieve from pushing the lambs towards MBNAs slaughter house.

I don't think Martin gets paid commission by MBNA... if he did I would imagine the Daily Rant would have put it on their front page!!

bethanyrayne

MSE_Martin wrote: »

Hi

I am struggling to see what the accusation is here. MSE only ever writes whats the best way to save money. Currently the only prime link to BT cards are for best balance transfers... the article is very specific about using th ecards for the BT, never spending oin them then shifting the debt elsewhere.

All card companies play dodgy tricks on their existing customers... yet if you follow the right practices you avoid them. MSE is here to show people the right way to do things within a recipe - there's simply no way to communicate every single problem any other way.

If the poster who's making these defamatory comments would like to explain and suggest what in practice is wrong with what MSE is saying over MBNA then I'd be more than happy to look at it and amend if it helps people save money.

Martin

You could add the caveat that MBNA are in the habit of increasing rates to as much as 34% APR if your not in a position to clear the promotional balance after the 0% period

bethanyrayne

Al_Mac wrote: »

This shows how naive some people actually are.

MSE can't know, in advance, what every financial institution is going to do, let alone document it.

MBNA do not make blanket changes, it will depend upon each customers profile. Along with everything else they do.

The phenomenon has been well documented on these forums over a period of months and thus, would not require a crystal ball to warn people of the likely outcome of not being in a position to clear/move any promotional balance from MBNA at the end of a promotional period.

Further, DON'T call me naive SIR.

thespudman

I called to close my virgin money mastercard as i paid off my balance. They put me through to retentions who offered to lower my rate to 9.9 for purchases / bal tranf ( when 0% ends) and cash transfers to current acct. but 25% on cash advance. so if you threaten to close your acct they can dramatically change your rate.

clio

thespudman
how long you been with them?

MSE_Martin

bethanyrayne wrote: »

You could add the caveat that MBNA are in the habit of increasing rates to as much as 34% APR if your not in a position to clear the promotional balance after the 0% period

I think that would be an irrelevant message. If you balance transfer debt to a 0% card you should ONLY do it if you can clear the card in full by the end of the period or have a good enough score to BT again.

MBNA and other cards have variable interest rates; but all card go to rates are too high if you're adopting the tarting strategy. This applies to ALL card whether the go to rate is 15% 20% 35% or 744%.

If you can't do that then you should be choosing the stable relationship card. The article is incredibly plain on this and the entire article is predicated on it - the article starts by explaining how to decide what type of card you need and very specifically explains how to use it.

As for the MBNA commission as with all companies if they're top pick we look for affiliate links as explained in the how this site is financed guide. I believe currently the Virgin links do have *s, for a long time they didn't. It makes no difference to what's written on the site and never has.

Frankly this criticism is a rather bizarre one. As I always state credit card companies are the opposition - you have to play them correctly or not at all to win. The article makes this VERY clear, if people don't follow what's written its very difficult to help.

In much the same way that for five years I've written in big text "never ever ever ever spend on a card you do a balance transfer on" yet on a regular basis get asked "I spent on a card after doing a balanc etransfer on, I know you said not to, but I did..." unfortunately this is a difficult thing to fix.

The aim of my guides is to show people what to do correctly and make it as plain as possible. I believe i do that and have reviewed the article base d on this criticism and don't see any need for any change - its pretty plain that you should not keep your 0% virgin card after the 0% period and should always make the minimums and that's the criticism.

Martin