Egg Overlimit charges

Lindy9

I recently asked Egg to send me my last 6 years statements so I could see if I had been charged any fees in order to claim back. What I found was that when you do a balance transfer (the system only allows you transfer say 90% of your limit!) they don't calculate into that the interest they load on in that month, so when it is applied it automatically takes you over your credit limit and they charge you £16. If you only pay the minimum then this charge could be added for months until you come back under your limit. I've wrote to them and asked for these fees back on the grounds they are now only unlawful but hidden, and they should calculate the interest into the equation at the time of the transfer, but in their usual arrogant manner, say it's legal and sent me a leaflet to write to the Ombudsman if I wanted to!!

When you go into Egg banking it only tells you your balance and you have dig really deep in order to see what's been added, like interest and fees! I've only just found out how to do it.

Has anyone else noticed this. I think it's an absolute underhand way of getting a little more money out of us, on top of the 2% transfer fee!! :mad:

~Chameleon~

But why would you be doing a BT unless on a promotional 0% or low LOB offer? Neither of these should incur any interest or fees sufficient to exceed the credit limit, which is why the 90% limit exists

Also I'm not sure what you mean by saying you have to "dig deep" to find out what's been added as it is clearly shown on your recent transactions or any of the statements, all of which are available to view.

If you know your balance is going to exceed your credit limit then surely it's your responsibility to ensure your payment covers it.

jonesMUFCforever

Sorry Lindy but you get no sympathy here.

eg a £7000 limit means you could transfer up to £6300.
Monthly interest at 16.9% is around £88 - nowhere near your limit - you can play around with any figure and what you say does not add up.

So you must have conducted other transactions to put you anywhere near your credit limit.
If so then it is your own responsibility to make sure that you do not go over your agreed credit.

Lindy9

But they instruct you how much you can transfer, and I did a 0% transfer Cameleon, but it still took me over my limit once it was added to what I already had on my account and then the interest added on top of that!

And Jones MUFC Forever, I didn't spend on the account in the meantime. I'm not altogether stupid, I know that that definitely take me over the limit and incur charges and am aware of my responsibilities thanks.

I was just asking if anyone else had had these charges put on without realising!

~Chameleon~

Lindy9 wrote: »

But they instruct you how much you can transfer, and I did a 0% transfer Cameleon, but it still took me over my limit once it was added to what I already had on my account and then the interest added on top of that!

Why on earth would you make a BT whilst already having a balance on the account???? :eek:

All you did was to trap your existing balance and leave it accruing interest whilst any payment you made was reducing the BT amount. It seems you really don't have much of an idea how credit cards work so one wonders whether you should be doing BT's and such like in the first place! :rolleyes:

jonesMUFCforever

Lindy9 wrote: »

But they instruct you how much you can transfer, and I did a 0% transfer Cameleon, but it still took me over my limit once it was added to what I already had on my account and then the interest added on top of that!

!

You have confirmed what I suspected - you had a balance owing - so Egg have done nothing wrong. Just your own bad accounting I'm afraid.

benf90

Just to clarify something. The limit for BTs is 95% of the available credit on the day that you transfer the balance.

On your previous statement Egg will have stated how much interest is due to be applied on the following statement.

In most cases the 95% limit leaves the remaining 5% to cover any BT fees etc. However, when you have an existing balance then that's not a certainty... as the interest hasn't yet been applied it's not been deducted from the available balance on that day.

Rightly or wrongly, Egg (and pretty much every other credit card company out there) puts the emphasis on you to calculate what you have available without going over the limit.

They give the information, you just have to gather it and do the sums.

Lindy9

Obviously I'm not as astute as you all are regarding calculating the interest on my account myself .. and I actually don't know anyone that does (so I'll assume you are all accountants or such like) and as this is the only time I have ever had charges to my account, other than interest, I like to think that I am of average intelligence and manage my finances quite well ..

But obviously this is not the forum for asking a simple question without getting smart ar*e answers :rolleyes:

~Chameleon~

But you don't need to be an accountant or be able to calculate interest charges to make sure your balance stays within it's limits.

Your statement tells you how much interest will be added next month if you only make minimum payment, so this is the maximum amount of interest that can be added. You should have allowed for this in your calculations.

The fact you made a BT with an exisiting balance on your card is what has caused you problems. Obviously you exceeded your limit with this BT which then incurred charges and would have stopped the 0% rate you were hoping to recieve on the BT.

The existing balance on your card would NOT have been charged at 0% anyway but would have continued to attract interest at your usual rate as it had effectively become trapped.

One of Martin's mantra's is to never, never, never spend on a BT card and the same applies to doing a BT with a balance already existing, unless of course it is also at 0% for an equal length of time.

You can't really blame EGG in this instance as it is your own error that this situation was caused.

benf90

Lindy9 wrote: »

Obviously I'm not as astute as you all are regarding calculating the interest on my account myself .. and I actually don't know anyone that does (so I'll assume you are all accountants or such like) and as this is the only time I have ever had charges to my account, other than interest, I like to think that I am of average intelligence and manage my finances quite well ..

But obviously this is not the forum for asking a simple question without getting smart ar*e answers :rolleyes:

I'm sorry but looking through the answers you've been given I wouldn't consider any of them being 'smart ar*e'. Blunt, honest and to the point yes, but not smart ar*e.

Maybe one or two could have been put across in a better way, but each one makes valid points.

I certainly didn't mean for my post to come across as being unhelpful so I'm sorry if that's how it was perceived.

You don't have to calculate the interest yourself, Egg did that for you. All that needed to be done was:

95% of the available credit minus the estimated interest given on your previous statement.

I'm by no means an accountant, I'm a 21 year old university student and my subject is related to sports.

Every single one of us has made mistakes or the wrong decisions financially. Most of the time you just have to take it on the chin and learn from it.

Your original post seemed to be placing all of the blame onto Egg without actually giving any thought or asking the question of whether it could maybe have been yourself that was in the wrong.

I'm not saying that you were in the wrong, just that when somebody gives no consideration that it could be them it can seem like they're posting here to have a rant/moan and not actually seeking help or answers.

Personally, I feel the Egg website is one of the easiest to use and none of the information is hidden away as you seem to suggest. Everything is clearly labelled and it shows a hell of a lot more information than any of my other credit card accounts.

It's great that you manage your finances well, that's what everyone on this site hopes to do. However, in your original post it seemed to imply that you never knew how to view your statements online with Egg.

If you've never looked at your statements then that's usually a sign of somebody that doesn't manage their finances well. So maybe that could be an explanation for some of the replies here being blunt and to the point.

One final thing, in my opinion this is the best forum there is regarding financial matters. The posters on here are some of the most helpful there are.