Making money from Egg Money

JimmyTheWig

I've just had a thought. What would the legalities / practicalities / whatever of someone starting a business that helped people get their hands on their available 0% limits?

So often we get asked on the balance transfer thread that people want to use XYZ card (which doesn't have SBT facility) to pay an overdraft / loan / etc. More often than not they don't have Egg Money.
They could apply for Egg Money, but the fact that they have an outstanding overdraft / loan to clear and have just applied for a 0% credit card might make it difficult for them to get one.

I've got an Egg Money account. They can do a balance transfer to put money onto my Egg Money card. They would pay the 3%. I could then put it into my current account (for free). I could then pay it back to them, less, say, a 1% handling fee.

What do you think?
Would it be legal? Don't see why not.
Would it be ethical. I think so - not a bad service, actually.
Would Egg like it? Probably not.
Short of the problems of advertising this service I can't see a risk. Can you?

Milarky

Suppose Egg returns the payment before you can foward it? Do you

1) Transfer the money on anyway (for 1%) and get charged interest
2) Give the other 'member' their 3% back (and no 1% for you either?)

That aside, it almost certainly would work - for a while. But in the longer term someone at one of these credit card companies is going to say something - and then Egg may take your privileges away.

So the best bet is just to do this on a 'friendly' basis - now and then - and drop the 1% idea as that's turning you into a business.

A more sophisticated scheme would see stoozers register an interest in having their own balances rolled over - with amounts and end dates (etc) Someone acts as the agent to 'bring' the wanabee stoozer together with the real stoozer and a payment is made (for which the stoozer pays a nominal fee to the agent) to the real stoozer's credit card at date they request. The agent then records the amount borrowed by the wanabee on its behalf and agrees they will receive amounts to cover minimum payments and the settlement sum by an agreed date.

The existing stoozer gains - because there are more wanabees than them on average and they are able to 'roll' there own balances more efficiently than if they just apply for cards themselves

The wanabee gets a small profit but access to ready balances that 'need' transferring

It is very 'co-operative' in fact - with the allocation of balance transfers being (somehow) equitably and impartially determined - probably by sophisticated software- therefore the government ought to approve (thinking that co-ops always donate to the Labour Party)

It fits the description 'credit union' better than the real ones!!

It makes for 'safer' and 'more responsible' organisation of the carry-trade/internaional money laudering operation, of which stoozing is a tiny cog, where individual 'stoozers' are brought together for a common purpose.

In a few years it will be able to issue free shares to members and list.....

(And you thought you'd just 'freelance' eh?)

jamesd

The risk is that they pay your credit card and you walk away with all of their money. Or that you pay their current account first and they walk away with your money.

JimmyTheWig

jamesd wrote: »

The risk is that they pay your credit card and you walk away with all of their money. Or that you pay their current account first and they walk away with your money.

I can completely see the risk to them. And that might be a big sticking point with attracting "customers".
Under what circumstances could I pay their current account before the money was in my Egg Money account (other than an admin error on my part)? Is it one of these things that shows up before it has cleared?

jamesd

You can pay them whenever you choose. No need to wait for money to arrive anywhere, you could do it the moment someone signs up. No tricks involved, just taking a risk.

johnllew

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

Short of the problems of advertising this service I can't see a risk. Can you?

Yes, for the people using your service: you could run off with the money, leaving them in debt. I wouldn't touch such a service with a bargepole.