Barclay card = THEIVES?!?!

bgam2005

Good day all,

This is my first post - so I hope it's in the right place...

I have just had a particually nasty experience with barclaycard and wanted to a) check if anyone else had and b) warn people about it.

I took out a Barclaycard Platinum Card because it had a very attractive 0% interest rate on balance transfers for 12 months. I was transferring £5'000. Upon transferring this sum, I had to pay a 3% fee - £150. Afterwhich, I assumed, and it would appear wrongly, that the minimum payments would be small in comparison to the usual credit card rates of 13%-20%.

So I was massviely shocked to speak with one of their customer service assistants who informed me that my minimum payments were to be £115 per month / £1'380 per year / 27.6% of my total balance p/a. Clearly if this is the case, then Barclaycard are the biggest sheisters ever to roam the earth.

I tried to clarify with their customer servie assistants however their vocabulary is somewhat limited therefore I have sent an email and written a letter and am awaiting the reply.

Has anyone else experienced this sort of thing from either BC or another card?

I really hope this is a pure error and will be corrected, as in all honesty, i'm pretty sure there is some grounds for legal action against them if this is their actual policy.

best regards

Ben

latecomer

Taken from the Barclaycard site, terms and conditions

Minimum Monthly repayment

2.25% or £5, whichever is greater. If you only make the minimum payment it will take longer and cost you more to clear your balance.

So presumably you didn't bother to read the terms and conditions prior to signing up for the card?

MABLE

bgam2005 wrote: »

Good day all,

This is my first post - so I hope it's in the right place...

I have just had a particually nasty experience with barclaycard and wanted to a) check if anyone else had and b) warn people about it.

I took out a Barclaycard Platinum Card because it had a very attractive 0% interest rate on balance transfers for 12 months. I was transferring £5'000. Upon transferring this sum, I had to pay a 3% fee - £150. Afterwhich, I assumed, and it would appear wrongly, that the minimum payments would be small in comparison to the usual credit card rates of 13%-20%.

So I was massviely shocked to speak with one of their customer service assistants who informed me that my minimum payments were to be £115 per month / £1'380 per year / 27.6% of my total balance p/a. Clearly if this is the case, then Barclaycard are the biggest sheisters ever to roam the earth.

I tried to clarify with their customer servie assistants however their vocabulary is somewhat limited therefore I have sent an email and written a letter and am awaiting the reply.

Has anyone else experienced this sort of thing from either BC or another card?

I really hope this is a pure error and will be corrected, as in all honesty, i'm pretty sure there is some grounds for legal action against them if this is their actual policy.

best regards

Ben

BC have not done anything improper it is clearly set out in their terms and conditions. I feel the problem is we have other card providers eg MBNA that will only take a token amount and we assume all other providers follow the same policy.

It will not matter how much you protest to BC they are in the right.

Ivan_Konstantinov

bgam2005 wrote: »

Barclaycard are the biggest sheisters ever to roam the earth.

no, that accolade goes to mbna

ad44downey

they're all tea leaves. get used to it

veryunsure

I wonder if BGAM2005 has misunderstood the difference between minimum payment %age and the interest rate?

They say you must pay 5% of the balance each month, if you owed £100 you must pay £5 each month as a minimum.

The interest will be 0% for a year, so you won't be charged anything on the £100 but maybe on the 3% fee you paid. That will be in T&Cs.

nomoneytoday

So you borrowed £5150, almost interest free and are complaining at paying it back?

2.25% per month is £115.88 as the minimum payment. Most CC have similar minimum amounts (MBNA being an exception).

This allows you to pay back more of the debt quicker - which is a good thing.
By the end of the year you will owe around £4000 and have a min payment of around £90 per month.

If you had a £5/month payment you would still owe over £5000 in comparison.

MABLE

Ivan_Konstantinov wrote: »

no, that accolade goes to mbna

I have had various MBNA Cards over the years and find them brilliant. Always offering fantastic promotional rates. I find provided you stick to the terms and conditions nothing usually goes wrong.

MABLE

nomoneytoday wrote: »

So you borrowed £5150, almost interest free and are complaining at paying it back?

2.25% per month is £115.88 as the minimum payment. Most CC have similar minimum amounts (MBNA being an exception).

This allows you to pay back more of the debt quicker - which is a good thing.
By the end of the year you will owe around £4000 and have a min payment of around £90 per month.

If you had a £5/month payment you would still owe over £5000 in comparison.

Only a good thing to pay back quicker providing you are not stoozing.

Paul_Herring

bgam2005 wrote: »

I was transferring £5'000. Upon transferring this sum, I had to pay a 3% fee - £150. [...]

So I was massviely shocked to speak with one of their customer service assistants who informed me that my minimum payments were to be £115 per month

I agree!. How dare they demand a minimum repayment of 2.5% of the balance, like almost every other card out there!!

On a more serious note...

You do realise (or maybe you don't) that '0%' means they won't charge interest, not that you'll be expected to make minimum repayments of 0%.

The benefit of 0% comes in the final balance at the end of the 0% period over a card that does charge interest (the 0% balance will be substantially less,) not that the provider allows you to make minimum payments that are less than normal.

The only provider that allows substantially smaller payments during a 0% offer is MBNA, and they are unusual in this respect.

SallyForth_2

They are not thieves - it's their money. The whole point is the amount you owe is not going to get any bigger and the £115/month is going to chip away at the debt until there is none left. Just don't spend on the card - file it away - well away from your wallet!