Egg Money - useless for keeping track of money. Any tips?

edandersen

Hi all, first post here so be gentle.

I have an Egg Money card and have been using it since September, mainly for the cashback. Pretty much all my spending goes on it, including cash out of the wall.

However, is there any way of actually knowing your CURRENT AVAILABLE balance? Not just the "Current Balance" thats calculated by what has finally reached your statement, but the "Available Balance" thats updated almost in real time as you spend on the card ala all my other online banks.

Its currently impossible to know where you stand at any one time - something I buy on a friday night, unless I keep a record of it, has no bearing on my account until the tuesday. Plus now with debit card payments taking a week to clear sometimes, its even harder to keep track of your spending - something pretty poor for a card marketed as a way of keeping score on day to day spending. With transactions AND payments in delayed by several days, you are often using your card with the current balance on the website being up to a week out of date. Completely useless. Its almost as if Egg have deliberately made it difficult to know where you stand JUST so you slip up and go into the red.

I've sent a secure message to Egg about this and just got a stock reply of "We have passed your suggestions on to our web team", so I'm asking for help from you lot. Are there any methods you guys use to actually keep track of your spending? I need to know how much is left in my account right now, not five days ago. Are there any decent PC applications or programs for mobile phones that do this? Microsoft Money doesn't work with Egg.

Cheers guys (and gals!)

Ed

mr_fishbulb

Yeah Microsoft Money doesn't work with egg - I emailed them asking about ti and got the same reply as you (we've passed this on).

If Egg doesn't supply the information for your current available balance then there's no way of getting it so there isn't going to be an application suitable.

Do they have a number you can call and check the available balance?

Milarky

It is possible to make this information available in real time but not all credit card providers pass it on to their customers, including Egg. For instance HFC brands 'Beneficial' and 'Marbles' (and probably the others too) have online 'account summaries' which show an item marked 'pending transactions'. If you make an online authorised transaction and refresh the account summary (in a separate window) this amount increases by the amount of the transaction (to the penny). MBNA offers a 'pending' option too, but this is rounded to the whole pound and does not appear to be updated in real time - only daily and therefore a day behind.

Whilst 'real time' a/c balances are available therefore they can only be as up to date as the merchant processing the item of course, but the point about a 'pending' balance is that an amount is usuallly authorised instantly while the identity of the merchant must follow some time after (eg overnight polling).

tim_n

You can log into their website? Whenever I ring or login I get told their systems are down!

edandersen

You'd have thought then that with the new site redesign, Egg could have started to provide this pending transaction information.

Its a bit stupid really. I'm seriously considering ditching all my Egg accounts since I'm unable to see how much money I've spent.

Could Egg get any worse? They actually now have no benefits over any other bank or credit card company (the debit cards now taking 4 working days was the final straw) and seem to spend their money on making hampster commercials.

YorkshireBoy

edandersen wrote:

Microsoft Money doesn't work with Egg.

It does if you enter your transactions manually like I do.

Perhaps a more accurate statement would be "Microsoft Money doesn't work automatically with Egg".

Having said that, it's not the end of the world if your available balance isn't 100% accurate is it? Since you have 2-3 weeks between the statement date and the payment due date, so you have plenty of time to act on the 'official' balance. If you do 'overspend', just make sure you have a full payment DD set up for any negative balance incurred.

They actually now have no benefits over any other bank or credit card company.

You haven't heard of stoozing then?

charlie12

edandersen wrote:

They actually now have no benefits over any other bank or credit card company

Egg Money has several (significant, IMO) advantages:

- 1% cashback on all purchases and additional cashback with certain online retailers. Certainly, there are other card providers that offer 1-2% cashback but there aren't many.

- The ability to pre-load funds and earn interest on those funds.

- The ability to withdraw cash without incurring handling fees (IIRC).

- The ability to withdraw positive balances via BACS at any time to your bank account without incurring fees.

- An excellent mule card for stoozing purposes.

I agree that the delays in updating transactions online and lack of "available balance" information can be a hindrance. But if you are unable to keep a mental/written/computerised note of your spending, you can always phone up Egg CS who will be able to tell you if there are any pending transactions and their respective amounts. Or use the pre-load facility.

If you'd prefer more accurate and up-to date account information online and you're willing to lose some/all of the benefits listed above, then by all means switch

mr_fishbulb

YorkshireBoy wrote:

It does if you enter your transactions manually like I do.

Perhaps a more accurate statement would be "Microsoft Money doesn't work automatically with Egg".

That would work, but it's a pain.

Infact I might do that tonight.