MBNA credit card

sarah.roberts85

I have an MBNA credit card and this month my interest rate has gone up enormously.
I can afford to pay the minimum payments still but I'm just so angry at the increase. I've been with MBNA for a while and have always paid at least the minimum payment on time. I phoned MBNA to see if they could reduce the interest rate at all and they said no, there was nothing they could do. I said I would switch to a different company then and still no change
Does anyone have any advice for me? Any way I can try and get them to change my rate?
Thanks!

CLAPTON

not much info to go on here ... income, credit record , total debt etc
but
find a better card and switch

anotherpaul_2

sarah.roberts85 wrote: »

I have an MBNA credit card and this month my interest rate has gone up enormously.
I can afford to pay the minimum payments still but I'm just so angry at the increase. I've been with MBNA for a while and have always paid at least the minimum payment on time. I phoned MBNA to see if they could reduce the interest rate at all and they said no, there was nothing they could do. I said I would switch to a different company then and still no change
Does anyone have any advice for me? Any way I can try and get them to change my rate?
Thanks!

They're likely worried that you're a potential bad debt (they seem to be doing this to most of their customers at the moment, so don't take it personally - it's not).

They are trying to encourage you to move some or all of you debt somewhere else and doing that, to a lower rate, is probably what you should do if you can.

Moggles_2

If you have a good payment history, why not apply for a 0% balance transfer card?

To maximise the 0% period, 14 months is currently available to new customers from Tesco.
A 2.9% BT fee applies.

http://www.tescofinance.com/personal/finance/finance/creditcards/bonuscc/index.jsp

Alternatively, you'd get 13 months with Halifax. There's a 3% BT fee.

http://www.halifax.co.uk/creditcards/pluscard136.asp

Which is best depends, to some extent, on which cards - besides MBNA - you have at the mo or have held recently.

MothballsWallet

Moggles - thanks for that: I think I'll have a closer look at the Tesco one as well as I was thinking of doing a balance transfer to a Barclaycard at 6.5% for life of balance as I'm not sure I could clear what I owe on my MBNA bmi Amex in 14 months.

bigstevex

Read through all the mbna threads on here, you really need to push them to get it lowered, ask to speak with managers etc and ask them to justify their increase etc considering the rates are going down. The libor where they get their money is right down now as well. I've had mine lowered 3 times now after they raised it 3 times

overlander

anotherpaul wrote: »

They're likely worried that you're a potential bad debt (they seem to be doing this to most of their customers at the moment, so don't take it personally - it's not).

They are trying to encourage you to move some or all of you debt somewhere else and doing that, to a lower rate, is probably what you should do if you can.

That would be very nice if it was true but unfortunately MBNA are verging on loan sharks. They temp you in with nice offers and hike your credit limit up then whack your apr up to 34 % ish. Look up the forum and you will see it is standard practice for them regardless of your credit history.

anotherpaul_2

overlander wrote: »

That would be very nice if it was true but unfortunately MBNA are verging on loan sharks. They temp you in with nice offers and hike your credit limit up then whack your apr up to 34 % ish. Look up the forum and you will see it is standard practice for them regardless of your credit history.

I've only been reading the forum for about a month, so I only have recent history to go on (and I'm not bothered enough to go back and look), but I'm happy to believe that you are right.

They've never done it to me, but I've never had a significant balance with them that wasn't at 0%. My 0% is about to run out and I'm struggling a bit to find alternatives, so I guess I might experience this first hand. (No, I don't need advise on this, thanks.)