Can MBNA increase the Interest rate to ridiculous 34%?

Geenie

I'm not sure why you are bothering with this, when the goverment already know and are trying to get Mandy to deal with them, not that I think they will budge that much!

The great credit card scandal
http://www.independent.co.uk/money/loans-credit/the-great-credit-card-scandal-1058003.html

Labour have a bit of explaining to do themselves when it comes to over charging on CC's, as they have one themselves!!!:rolleyes:

Labour is 'hypocritical' on credit card interest
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/borrowing/creditcards/3688209/Labour-is-hypocritical-on-credit-card-interest.html

madhusudhan

A sigh of relief !

I spoke to the MBNA Account Review department (after talking to Loyalty and others) to consider my request to reduce the interest rates.

As I told them that I am struggling to pay due to the hiked rates, they have reverted back to my earlier rate six months back - so Abbey now on 21.9 while others on 24.9 (something is better than nothing).

It seems if we let them know (only the account review dept can do this) that we are struggling to meet up payments due to the increased rates, they would go to the earlier rates (and the request should be within six months)

Thanks to all
M

admiral1_2

madhusudhan wrote: »

I spoke to the MBNA Account Review department (after talking to Loyalty and others) to consider my request to reduce the interest rates.

Which number is it to get through to this department?

sunlady_2

madhusudhan wrote: »

A sigh of relief !
I spoke to the MBNA Account Review department (after talking to Loyalty and others) to consider my request to reduce the interest rates.
M

Do you please have the number for this department? My husband has tried several departments with no success. His interest rate has increased from 16.9% to 34.9 % despite no change in his circumstances and never missing a payment.

madhusudhan

Geenie wrote: »

I'm not sure why you are bothering with this, when the goverment already know and are trying to get Mandy to deal with them, not that I think they will budge that much!

The great credit card scandal
http://www.independent.co.uk/money/loans-credit/the-great-credit-card-scandal-1058003.html

Labour have a bit of explaining to do themselves when it comes to over charging on CC's, as they have one themselves!!!:rolleyes:

Labour is 'hypocritical' on credit card interest
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/borrowing/creditcards/3688209/Labour-is-hypocritical-on-credit-card-interest.html

Government knows a lot of things that needs fixing. If public is behind a cause, I am sure that escalates the issue which might increase the priority of the issue.

Paulgonnabedebtfree

madhusudhan wrote: »

I have got quite a bit of balance outstanding on MBNA cards (Virgin, A&L and Abbey - about 30k!).

I was talking to the representative yesterday and I was shocked to hear that the 0% balance rate has gone to 34%!!!

It seems once the balance transfer was done, they moved to 16%, then to 26% and then to 34%.

Due to financial situation I am at the moment, I am struggling to pay the actual amount - on top of this the interest rate hike is really eating my payments.

I asked them if I can get any reduced rate they said no. They said "I can complain, but I can't do anything as FSA knows what they are doing"

I am stupid to think that the rate was going to be at around 12%. But this 34% rate is really really terrible. They said I have been notified by post!

Is there any thing I can do to reduce the rate such as complain? or take to some bureau? etc.

Any advice is HIGHLY appreciated.

Thanks
M

They tried pulling the same stunt on me too (as well as many others). Fortunately, I have a lot of unused credit on other cards and made appropriate balance transfers. I now have three life of balance deals running simultaneously and the highest is 7.9%. The four MBNA cards that I have all now have balances of £0.00 . It took an extra month to pay off the residual interest but my last four bills from any MBNA derived accounts were c.£28, c.£9, c.£5, and £0.15 (cost them more to send than one than what they got back). I didn't plan to do so much business with MBNA but they bought up other card companies with whom I had accounts.
I've been lucky on this one as I did consider trying to improve my credit score by closing the other accounts. As things have turned out, NOT closing them has achieved this. I also pay those other accounts by DD to ensure that I don't forget a payment. I would give up most of my "spare" credit facilities but there is always the possibility of a very big repair bill on my work van. I absolutely need that to run as my entire income depends on it.
Although they caught a lot of people out, as far as my own situation goes they have shot themselves in the foot. Would I do business with MBNA again? Too right I would - but only at a reasonable LOB deal (which they don't seem to offer) or if they were to offer 0% or very low interest deals. If they offer any more of that to me, I would transfer ONLY the amount that I reckon I could afford to repay during the promotion. I suppose that the next step for them is to reduce my limits and to introduce an admin fee for dormant accounts.

Paulgonnabedebtfree

As an addition to the above, I've just checked out MBNA's site. The only rate they mention that is above 30% is their American Express card. All the others are around the 15 - 17% mark. They seem to get around this by calling it the "typical" rate.
A good start would be to force such companies to give equal prominence to the rates that they ACTUALLY charge many of their customers.

madhusudhan

While I was doing a bit of research on the unfair credit card hikes, I found an US Senate Bipartisan Investiation report into unfair credit card practices.

The report details eight cusomer cases of unfair credit card interest rate hikes. The report includes a history of payments for each of these eight customers.

It explains that hiked rates are in effect allow the payments to coverup the interest payments while the pricipal balance does not deplete considerably.

Here's the Investigation Report

I would appreciate if anyone one who's fallen into this trap like me can prepare their case to post here (http://unfaircards.blogspot.com)

Megatimbo

Hello madhusudhan Found your topics Interesting as i`ve had dealings with MBNA in the past here is a rather American view of the whole credit card culture thingy.

http://www.affil.org/ybf


this is a cleaned up version and they didnt say "fooled" in the video i saw.

Hope you find their campaign interesting about getting a fair deal for young people in particular.

Regards M

madhusudhan

admiral1 wrote: »

Which number is it to get through to this department?

Account Review Dept: 0800 028 9170

Customer Loyalty: 0800 783 1116

Loyalty team didn't help me much!