Sainsburys Bank Reduced Limit

izboo

Hi,

At some point in the last few days Sainsburys Bank have reduced the credit limit on my card. I checked online last week as I was planning a holiday and I had a balance of £3000 on a card limit of £10100. Fair enough I thought, find a holiday and book it using this card (I don't know if it really makes a difference as I have never had to claim on it but I always book flights and holidays with credit cards to get the payment protection then pay them off). We found a holiday so tried to book it and the card was rejected twice. Went online to Sainsburysbank and hey presto they had reduced the limit down to £3150. Unfortunately a few pending transactions had gone though to take the balance to £3230 and the screen happily told me I was overlimit and guess what, a £12 overlimit charge too.

OK I accept they can reduce limits at will (after bombarding me for weeks with offers of lifetime balance transfers) but what are the rules on charging overlimit fees when they haven't told me about the reduced limit yet? I assume that the limit change was applied at the end of the last statement period for which the postal statement hasn't reached me yet. The online statement shows the last transaction included was 26 March but doesn't give a cut off date - simply says March Statement). I had a look at the T&C but they are a bit ambiguous about this -

"We will give you at least 30 days' notice in writing of any change to your disadvantage, other than a change to your interest rates, cash limit or credit limit. We will give you at least 7 days' notice of any change to your interest rates or any other change to these conditions that is not to your disadvantage."

A literal interpretation of this implies that they need give no notice of a limit change but, as I asked before, are they then allowed to charge a penalty fee when they let pending transactions take the balance over the limit without me being aware of this change?

A disgruntled customer (who will be paying off the card next week).

Warning to other Sainsburysbank customers - check your credit limits haven't been slashed!!!

Robert_Sterling_3

Wot a chiz.

vet8

They also cut my credit limit. I have just used this card for a LOB transfer and nothing else. They reduced the limit to only just over the balance left. I do not remember them writing to me, I am pretty sure it just said it on the next statement.

I do agree it is a completely sneaky trick to reduce the limit, not tell you and then charge overlimit charges. It makes you think they do it on purpose to make money doesn't it!