Credit Limit Change

londonuk2008

They can reduce your limit at any time - but they can not reduce it below the balance and then charge you overlimit fee's or expect to make larger payments (ie above your min payments).

I would make an official complaint in writing before making a complaint to the f.o.s.

I would dig around as I have read the above somewhere.

jamalfatty

footballaintforbirds wrote: »

Yes, they lowered the limit after the money had been spent.

If the limit was in place beforehand, she would never have been able to go over it.

Surely they can't do this ?

Reading between the lines, I think what may have happened is that the limit was reduced, OP was notified but perhaps didnt receive/see notice, started spending on card and perhaps assumed (wrongly) that the card would be declined when limit was reached - it wasnt which resulted in OP going overlimit unintentionally.

Did the reduction in the limit occur very near to the spending that was done on it?

Bismarck

MABLE wrote: »

If you phone them try to keep calm. If you end up losing your cool it will not help your case. You need to get your point across in a rational manner.

Best of luck anyway.

can't emphasise enough the "keeping calm" part...the person who answers your call does not necessarily react well to being shouted at!

footballaintforbirds

jamalfatty wrote: »

Reading between the lines, I think what may have happened is that the limit was reduced, OP was notified but perhaps didnt receive/see notice, started spending on card and perhaps assumed (wrongly) that the card would be declined when limit was reached - it wasnt which resulted in OP going overlimit unintentionally.

Did the reduction in the limit occur very near to the spending that was done on it?

The balance of the card was paid off at around £2500 and left alone for a couple of weeks. The card was then used for about £1400, then definitely days after this event, the limit was cut to £700 and exposed to their charges.

HamiltonL

Surely they would write to you in advance that the limit was changing? I know we do that usually. Did the cardholder receive the letter, or misplace it?

I've certainly known customers to have their limits slashed, but this is really for the high risk brigade.

As for appealing, good luck is all I can say...

Kool_Kool

I have an HBSC visa card and as I haven't used it for a while they wrote to me to say they were lowering the credit limit, what's the point anyway.

Richard019

Kool_Kool wrote: »

I have an HBSC visa card and as I haven't used it for a while they wrote to me to say they were lowering the credit limit, what's the point anyway.

From your point of view it's good in that it should make finding future credit easier/cheaper as you've less available credit on your file.

From their point of view it reduces the amount of debt they have to underwrite. Although you weren't using it at the time they still had to make sure they had the ability to cover the debt in case you went out and spent it. Effectively they need to borrow less from other institutions, which saves them money. The same principle applies in the OP's post but for me they should have said they were lowering it and just stopped future spending until it was below the neww limit rather than applying charges.