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And if I get my rough calcs wrong, and hapen to overpay by accident (quite likely in order to err on the side of caution), how do Halifax react to this in practice (terms and conditions aside)?
Umpredictably I would think. For a small sum I'm pretty sure they would ignore it. You can't rely on it being the same for everyone or even for you at different times.0 -
Yes you are correct in your assumption. Interest will continue to accrue between the date the statement was issued and the date the DD pays it off. You could make a rough calculation of the interest and make a manual payment.
Yes this is something I had not considered.
Just had a looked at some old bills and doing it by DD you can end up paying two months interest - your last sentence (as I’m sure you meant) might be “You could make a rough calculation of the capital plus the interest and make a manual payment”.
In explanation – I chose to have my DD collected on 14th of the month and they made my statement date just after that on the 19th of the month. (now I see why)
So if I use an ATM on 20th of the month the money taken is billed on the 19th of the following month and the DD is taken on the 14th of the next month after that so I pay compound interest on the capital for 2 months (less 5 days). That being the period between withdrawl and repayment.
Now further questions arise
Am I actually allowed to make a payment before the due date?
If I make an early manual payment, bearing in mind they give me a payment date, will it be credited to my account for interest purposes on the day I pay it or on the due date?
Can I make manual payments with a DD in place?
Am I allowed to make payments before I get my bill? (I can see my statement on line)
I will have to look at the terms and conditions
Hmm In overall terms its not that much money – is it worth the time?0 -
Hi murphydavid, I used to have a halifax mastercard and I can answer some of your questions from my experience with that card. Not exactly the same as the Clarity Card, but I would expect the mechanisms to be very similar.Am I actually allowed to make a payment before the due date?If I make an early manual payment, bearing in mind they give me a payment date, will it be credited to my account for interest purposes on the day I pay it or on the due date?Can I make manual payments with a DD in place?Am I allowed to make payments before I get my bill? (I can see my statement on line)
Interestingly enough I remember once making a payment manually for ~£20 to clear the full balance on the account. Despite doing this, to my surprise the full direct debit still kicked in and I ended up having a credit of ~£20 on my credit card account.
I know the T&Cs do not allow the Clarity Card account to be in credit, however I am starting to wonder whether this strategy could be used to accidentally put the account in credit to avoid interest when withdrawing cash abroad.
Nessie0 -
Interestingly enough I remember once making a payment manually for ~£20 to clear the full balance on the account. Despite doing this, to my surprise the full direct debit still kicked in and I ended up having a credit of ~£20 on my credit card account.
I know the T&Cs do not allow the Clarity Card account to be in credit, however I am starting to wonder whether this strategy could be used to accidentally put the account in credit to avoid interest when withdrawing cash abroad.
Nessie
Yes thats the bit that troubles me. Not having time to read up the rules I was just going to give it a try to see what happens. But if I pay some manually and then they take the full amount on top of that, like they did with you, I will be in credit and that will have broken the rules. I have a nasty feeling that the agreement I made would result in a fine for rule breaking? I will just have to look it up!0 -
murphydavid wrote: »Yes thats the bit that troubles me. Not having time to read up the rules I was just going to give it a try to see what happens. But if I pay some manually and then they take the full amount on top of that, like they did with you, I will be in credit and that will have broken the rules. I have a nasty feeling that the agreement I made would result in a fine for rule breaking? I will just have to look it up!
I have a Halifax Clarity Reward Credit card and I've just setup a DD to pay off in full each month - used to pay it on internet banking each month.
I've just had a letter from them confirming the arrangements and I quote "The Direct Debit will be collected every month even if you send us an additional payment". Pretty clear to me.
I wouldn't worry too much about the interest on ATM withdrawls. I recently used the card at a Permanent TSB ATM in the Republic of Ireland to withdraw 150 euors. The interest on the following month's statement was 43 pence. Can't argue with that0 -
I've just had a letter from them confirming the arrangements and I quote "The Direct Debit will be collected every month even if you send us an additional payment". Pretty clear to me.
I wouldn't worry too much about the interest on ATM withdrawls. I recently used the card at a Permanent TSB ATM in the Republic of Ireland to withdraw 150 euors. The interest on the following month's statement was 43 pence. Can't argue with that
Sorry - not quite clear to me.
Yes collected every month, but collect what? The amount I owe or the amount on the statement? And will the statement have included the amount I paid manually. ie will they break their own rules - and take more than I owe put me in credit then say I was responsible.
Also in my experiance the full interest on your 150 (£110) does not appear on the following month's statement because that is only the interest between taking out the money and your statemet date after you get that statement they go on adding interest for the period up to when the DD is taken and that appears on the next statement. And thats the problem because its a longer period. Probably another £1.10. I'm presuming they will have set your DD at about a month after you get your statement so they can do this.
I went to the Halifax web site but gave up. because
Found in Q and A
"Can I put money on my card to increase my available credit whilst on holiday? Credit cards are not designed to be used this way. Using the card in this way breaches the product's Terms & Conditions, which state:
7.7 You must not make payments or transfer funds from another credit or store card to your account that would leave a credit balance on your account. We may return any funds that exceed the balance owing on your account to the account from which the money was sent."
Tried to find those terms and conditions but could not
But did find other terms and conditions perporting to be for the Clarity card of which one item was
"5. Charges
We may also charge you for the following special services.- Instructing an agent to make contact with you when you have broken the agreement with us £19 (Plus VAT)"
Under contact us I find
No email address to email.
It said: If you’re registered for Online Banking and you need help you can email us. Our help section aims to answer your questions.
Logged on but still could not find an email address?
Usual difficulties!!!
No more time0 -
Hi, have a question:
I want to buy a product from spain and ship it over to the UK. I have two accounts I can use my debit card to do this. I will be paying in Euros, I want to know what charges I will incur for one account.
My Llloyds account charges me only £1 on the transaction, applying their foreign exchange rate to the euros that will leave my account. The rate today is 1.09 Euros to Sterling. It does not charge me anything else such as 2.99% international transaction fee.
My Santander account charges me £1.25 applying their (more favourable foreign exchange rate), todays being 1.124 Euros to Sterling.
I am however unsure if they will charge me 2.75% for this debit card transaction made from the UK. On this site it suggets they will, on documentation it says it might though I'm unclear.
Please, can someone clarify, and suggest who might be to this transaction through. It's about €600.
Thanks0 -
Hi, have a question:
I want to buy a product from spain and ship it over to the UK. I have two accounts I can use my debit card to do this. I will be paying in Euros, I want to know what charges I will incur for one account.
Please, can someone clarify, and suggest who might be to this transaction through. It's about €600.
Thanks
Hi Tim,
Have you considered using a credit card?
If you use a credit card for any purchases over £100 you will also get "section 75" protection "Pay for something costing between £100 and £30,000 on a credit card and the card issuer's equally liable if something goes wrong." have a look at MSE's article http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/section75-protect-your-purchases
In addition if you look at the article for this discussion thread http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-travel-money?dd it gives you a few options for credit cards with no overseas loading for purchases e.g. Santander Zero, Halifax Clarity, Post Office.
If you use one of the credit cards mentioned in the article you should incur no fee, fees for other cards including debit cards are also listed on the travel money article shown above.
Hope this helps,
Nessie0 -
Hello we've had a Nationwide flex account for years (have a holiday home in spain) and also have one of their credit cards which i only use once a year to pay for our Spanish car ins. Due to Nationwide now charging to withdraw cash from atms (in Europe) using our debit cards Im thinking of opening a N&P gold classic account I know we have to pay in £500 per month to be fee free but is there anything else I should be aware of?
We plan on keeping the nationwide credit card as theres no fee as I understand it for using this card is that correct?
Our plan is to use this account as we did the Flex account e.g. have a £500 monthly direct debit paid in from our main bank a/c , then before we go over to spain set up from our main bank a/c additional monthly transfers for the time we are there usually 6-8 weeks, after reading thru' all the info on N&p website i cant see any problem with doing this, just wanted to check with you lovely helpful people that Im not missing anything ? Many Thanks xx
PS
Would their Gold light a/c be better for our use?0 -
murphydavid wrote: »Sorry - not quite clear to me.
Yes collected every month, but collect what? The amount I owe or the amount on the statement? And will the statement have included the amount I paid manually. ie will they break their own rules - and take more than I owe put me in credit then say I was responsible.
Also in my experiance the full interest on your 150 (£110) does not appear on the following month's statement because that is only the interest between taking out the money and your statemet date after you get that statement they go on adding interest for the period up to when the DD is taken and that appears on the next statement. And thats the problem because its a longer period. Probably another £1.10. I'm presuming they will have set your DD at about a month after you get your statement so they can do this.
...
David, thanks for persevering with trying to get to the bottom of this.
If interim payments to the card are permitted (to minimise the interest charges on cash withdrawals), and then Halifax take a direct debit payment of the prior month's full balance, such that the balance could go into credit, it seems there's the possibility of breaching the terms, as you described:-
7.7 You must not make payments or transfer funds from another credit or store card to your account that would leave a credit balance on your account.
You could argue the toss that it was their direct debit which caused the credit balance.
But they could argue that it was your earlier payment (whilst being aware that you already had an instruction in place for a direct debit payment to clear the prior balance in full), which caused the credit balance. Since it's their bat and ball, their view would probably prevail.
Besides the suck-it-and-see approach (risking a charge for breach of terms), asking them directly about that specific scenario seems the only way to know for sure. And getting their response in writing, if it needs to be relied upon later.
In the meantime, I'm interested in hearing from anyone who has done what David described:-
- Made cash withdrawals just prior to a statement date;
- A few days later (e.g. just after the statement date), made a manual payment to the card in order to minimise the interest charged on the cash withdrawal;
- Then had a direct debit payment a few weeks later of an amount equal to the balance at the statement date, to clear the monthly balance (such that the card results in a credit balance due to your earlier manual payment).
I'd have thought that this scenario must be quite common for anyone using the Clarity card. What's happened when you've done this?0
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