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  • I am in the following situation, and its bad.

    I owe £14000 on a Virgin card (14.9% and £17900 limit), £8700 on a Barclaycard Platinum Visa (18.9% and £9500 limit) and £9000 on a Halifax card (15.9% and £10700 limit). I have been properly foolish and cavalier and i need to get a grip FAST!

    I can transfer on a 0% deal until May 2010 to the virgin card upto my limit, and to the halifaxcard at 5.94% life of balance upto my limit, BUT i realise that the existing debt won't get paid off and that the interest (14.9 % virgin and 15.9% Halifax) will accrue on those balances. I don't know what to do? My credit score according to experian is literally perfect, but because of the high outstanding unsecured debt ( i can't secure as i have no equity with the housing slump), nobody will touch me and i can understand why!

    So am i better to transfer as much off the barclaycard to the better rates as possible or what? I am so confused and daunted, any advice gratefully considered. Help?:confused:
  • CannyJock
    CannyJock Posts: 3,838 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    cydonian74 wrote: »
    Virgin £14000/£17900 @ 14.9% (3900 avail - 0% deal until May 2010)
    Halifax £9000/£10700 @ 15.9% (1700 avail - 5.94% LOB)
    Barclay £8700/£9500 @ 18.9% (800 avail)

    More info needed.

    What's the TOTAL AMOUNT you can repay to your cards?

    Do you have any other debts apart from your mortgage?

    Can you take a mortgage payment break while you deal with your credit cards? The APR on your mortgage will be lower than your card debts, so if that's able to accumulate interest for a few months you'd be better off doing that.

    Which cards have you applied for recently (last 12 months) and been rejected, and when did you apply for them?

    When was the last time you requested a credit limit increase with any of your existing cards?
    "A child of five could understand this. Fetch me a child of five." - Groucho Marx
  • Nobody will increase my limits, i have applied for 2 loans and one card in the last month and been rejected on the grounds of too much unsecured debt (Egg was the credit card), which is fair comment, obviously.

    I could take a payment break on my mortgage, once in any 12 month period. I now have around £3000 that i can pay from savings as well. I have switched £2900 to the 0% offer on Virgin, which was as much as i could, but they have now told me that that card is 'frozen'.

    They were going to increase my rate to 23.6% pa (from 14.9%), apparently they sent a letter telling me, but i never received that. They allowed me to transfer on 0% on the understanding that they would freeze my rate at 14.9% and allow the 0% transfer for upto £2900, but the card effectively is now unusable and i need to pay it off, which i am ok with. I also transfered £1500 to the Halifax card at 5.94% so the Barclaycard now has £4300 left on it at 18.9%.

    As regards how much i can pay, it is really more a case of which card to hit and how hard which i need some advice on. I would say around £700 per month if neccessary, which it probably is! I was paying out around £550 anyway, but hopefully more of that will be used to clear as much capital as possible rather than paying quite so much interest, now that i have done some switching? I am still pretty confused, but i am resolved to the long haul. NB:- everybody including my experian credit report has said that my credit rating is near perfect, but because its such a large amount of unsecured debt (i can't secure as no equity at moment), that nobody will take the risk becasue a large amount of my money comes from commission based pay (about 60% of it). Hope all this helps?:confused:
  • CannyJock
    CannyJock Posts: 3,838 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    Okay, so was:
    Virgin £14000/£17900 @ 14.9% (3900 avail - 0% deal until May 2010)
    Halifax £9000/£10700 @ 15.9% (1700 avail - 5.94% LOB)
    Barclay £8700/£9500 @ 18.9% (800 avail)

    But is now:
    Virgin £14000 @ 14.9%, £2900 @ 0% until May 2010 (reverting to 14.9%)
    Halifax £9000 @ 15.9%, £1500 @ 5.94% LOB
    Barclay £4300 @ 18.9%

    Okay, I would pay the £3000 to your Barclaycard, make the minimum repayments to Virgin and Halifax and with the £700 per month, that will be clear as your highest APR card.

    What you then have to do is to wait a month and phone Barclaycard looking for a balance transfer deal. Don't think they're well known for giving repeat deals, but worth a shot. If they won't give a repeat then I'd be tempted to cancel it. It'll increase your "%credit used" figure, but at £700 per month, that will be back in shape in 6 months time.

    Unfortunately the mixed rates on the Virgin and Halifax mean that your payments will go against the 0% and 5.94% amounts first, so the 14.9% and 15.9% balances are "locked in" behind these and won't be touched until the other balances are repaid in full.

    What I was hoping we could come up with was a way to have cleared the Halifax card before taking them up on the LOB offer, even though the Barclaycard is the highest APR.

    With 3 applications and 3 rejections in the past month, no point applying for anything else for another 6 months.

    After the Barclaycard is clear, the Halifax card would be my next priority. For the sake of only 1 month, I'm not sure the mortgage break would be worth the hassle.

    Keep an eye out for Halifax making you any new offers once your balance is below the £9000 mark.
    "A child of five could understand this. Fetch me a child of five." - Groucho Marx
  • Hi! I was just wondering if you could tell me whether balance transfers can be done from bank loans to credit cards as well? I'm paying a very high rate on a £2,000 loan. I stumbled across you AFTER I made this stupid mistake!
  • CannyJock
    CannyJock Posts: 3,838 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    nov|ce wrote: »
    Hi! I was just wondering if you could tell me whether balance transfers can be done from bank loans to credit cards as well? I'm paying a very high rate on a £2,000 loan. I stumbled across you AFTER I made this stupid mistake!

    Not directly - but these cards allow you to transfer money directly to you bank account and you can repay the loan from that. They charge a fee and they're known to hike the APR up at the end of the promotion period, so you'd need to have planned to repay it before the 0% expires or have transferred the balance elsewhere (maybe to another 0% card).

    If you miss a payment then you'll also lose the 0% rate and incur charges, so need to be careful not to. Virgin Money card is the best of them at the moment.
    "A child of five could understand this. Fetch me a child of five." - Groucho Marx
  • Hi There,

    I have a balance of 2194 on my B/Card, a balance of 2120 on my Halifax (all of which is on varied life transfers between 6.9 and 8.9) and an egg at 1559 which is on 17.9%.

    Barclays have offered me the 6.9% life deal, however, I'm weary to transfer the egg over without clearing the current barclays balance, which, at the moment, I cannot do without shifting the balances over to the other cards . The only issue is that I have no credit remaining on the other cards, except for the Barclays which has a limit of 4400. What would you reccommend I do? Transfer the balance from the Egg to the Barclays anyway and take advantage of the deal, bearing in mind that the 2194 that remains on this card is still accruing interest at a phenomenally high rate of 24.9%? I don't think I'd be eligible for another card, hence I'm finding myself in this rather strange predicament.. Halifax are offering me a 8.9% for the life balance, however, I have insufficient credit on the account to take advantage of the offer..

    Any advice as to what I can do to get rid of the B/Card balance or shuffle it all around to make it at 6.9%

    Thanks
  • Hi,

    I am just trying to sort out my finances and have had a major overhaul tonight to try and pay off as much as I can as I have just had a couple of offers come in for 0% Balance Transfers.

    Anyway, here's my situation:

    1) Capital One Card - Current Balance £797 (Limit £2000) - £120 @ 0%, £677 @ 18.3%
    2) Lloyds Card - Current Balance £1918 (Limit £4500) - £1918 @ 17.9%
    3) Egg Card - Current Balance £892 (Limit £940) - £515 @ 6%, £436 @ 21.9%

    I've been offered 0% for 12 months by Capital One and 0% for 6 months by Lloyds.

    My solution is:

    1) Shift £1000 from Lloyds to Capital One
    2) Shift £892 from Egg to Lloyds (therefore clearing my Egg Card which has the highest interest rate)

    This would therefore mean by situation will be:

    1) Capital One - £1797, £1120 @ 0% and £677 @ 18.3%
    2) Lloyds - £1810, £892 @ 0% and £918 @ 17.9%
    3) Egg - Clear

    Hopefully I've done my sums correctly there!!! I've estimated this would mean I'd save roughly £24 per month on interest for at least 6 months. Unfortunately I can only pay off just over the Minimum Amount per month but at least with the 0% it wouldn't be such a wasted payment!

    Please could someone tell me if they think this is the best solution? I would have liked to transfer all to Lloyds and then back to Capital One but the deadline for transfering is 14th September so I don't have enough time to do that.

    Help would be greatly appreciated!!

    Thank you :A
  • Hi
    can I please jump in on this and ask for advice ?

    I am looking to raise a substantial amount of money and looking at cards as a POSSIBLE cheaper way forward.

    I have no mortgage and a very cheap rent but need to raise cash to pay back a loan of £20k from bank of mum and dad which enabled me to be mortgage free and move house!

    so my current cards are

    barclaycard balance £2300 total credit limit £9700
    virgin credit card balance zero total credit limit £7800
    m&s credit card balance zero total credit limit £5000
    IF credit card balance zero total credit limit £6950

    I have an excellent credit rating (never late payments paid off mortgage etc)

    so virgin have an offer of 0.9% APR at present until aug2010

    was thinking to do following BT from bcard to virgin £2300 at 0.9%
    cash transfer from virgin to bank account £4K at 0.9%
    then I am lost !

    I know barclaycard have special rates (used to be 6.9% LOB?) and my other cards might have special offers at some point soon?

    Would it be an option for me to use virgin card in that way then transfer whole balance to another card when offer rates found....then use virgin again to transfer more cash ?

    Any comments would be very welcome/ideas on how to move forward ..thanks in advance
  • i have life of balance @ 4.94% have been offered 6.95% life of balance with same company,should i take it or would this be counter productive. i dont qualify for any other cards or transfers. my lower rate i.e 4.94 owes £2,200 and the one i want to transfer is for £1,800 which will bring my total to £4,000. any ideas?
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