Marbles crisis

Flea

Hi there,

Please forgive me if this is a repeat of other threads as I'm new to this. I am having a total nightmare with my marbles cards and I don't know what to do. I've been with Marbles for approx 6 years and over the years I have been getting more and more indebt with them as I stupidly took advantage of the large credit limit they gave, £9,100!! I have been managing my repayments until 3 months ago when the interest rates have creeped up to 33% and with all the confusion I missed a payment with them making my repayments to over £400 a month.
I would take a loan out or transfer balance onto another card but I have been refused as my credit limit is maxed out. I feel so low as I have prided myself on my reliable repayments and all other debt is being managed without any problems. Please can anyone advise me on what my options are...I don't really want to upset my other creditors.
Any help would be very gratefully recevied :-)

latecomer

First things first. Get a copy of your credit file held by Experian and Equifax (and the other one if required) and find out whats on it. You can do this for free by signing up for free trials with a least 2 of them or by paying £2 each and getting it by post. Make sure all info is accurate and up to date.

You could try applying to another card provider and then transferrinf the balance to them at a lower interest rate. This would obviously be dependent on your credit history and circumstances etc. there is lots of good info on here so have a good read of the guides and stickies.

Bismarck

I sympathise....my Marbles has the highest limit of all and the offers aren't great but the limit is useful....however, the non-offer rates are horrible....I treat mine with the utmost care but certainly wish you well with your dealings.

All you need to somehow do is break the chain and get the debt away for a little while and the chances are that a sub 10% offer could be had with Marbles...

Flea

Thank you - will login today to get the credit scoring.

Yolko

Good luck with your Marbles problem.

I'd held a Marbles card since they first started (advertising as one of the first to have online statements, I think), and used it regularly in preference to others... for no reason other than I liked its clean design. Crazy I know, especially to admit on a website like this one, but hey it was true!

After HFC flogged the accounts to the cowboys that own it now, the interest rate shot up - so I simply closed the account because when I asked them what they were playing at, they said that the rate was always variable and that they could do what they liked. I liked the card, but not that much!

My other main card, an Abbey-branded MBNA card, which I'd previously only really used to leave a 0% balance transfer on, had a standard rate of around 16% and that shot up to over 30% too... though when I phoned them to cancel it, they reduced it to 9.9%.

I guess it depends on your circumstances - if, like MBNA, they see a small monthly balance and believe you could close they'll offer something better rather than lose your custom - but if they think you're stuck, they'll screw you for everything they can.

I think you'd be wasting your time trying to negotiate with the Marbles folks, but I wish you well in finding somewhere else to transfer the balance to.