Barclaycard 0% for life - 3 years ago!

scotte_2

Now I know that I was not the only person here to take Barclay card up on this offer.
This 0% balance transfer for life, along with my regular £1 donation to charity has been working fine, until now.
For the last 3 years I've been receiving my monthly statements showing my outstanding balance plus my charitable donation along with my "next months estimated interested".
All previous statements have had the estimated interest showing as between 50p and £1 (increasing as the number of donations increased). Anyway, this month my statement shows an estimated interest of £13.40 which implies that they will be charging me for the entire outstanding balance and not just the chargeable part.
I have called Barclays this morning and talked to 2 different guys and neither of them have ever heard of the 0% balance transfer for life offer. The 2nd guy (manager) asked if I could fax them a copy of the offer I took them up on. As it happens I think I did actually keep a copy of the application form ( I'm kind of cautious this way) but I'm not sure I'll be able to find it, after all it was 3 years ago!

I tried explaing to the guy that surely my previous statements reflects the fact that I'm on a 0% for life, although he told me that "maybe" it was only 0% for 3 years! I tried telling him that the onus is not on me to prove the offer I am/was on. I have told him that if / when I manage to find my copy of the original form (or a blank copy of the same offer) I'll just be going direct to the FSA with it.

Has this happened to anyone else?

tobago22

I have the same offer as you.

A letter from Barclaycard Services dated 27 August 2003 states

"At present I am able to offer you a rate of 6.9% for the life of the balance,
however, if you spend £1.00 or more each month the interest on the balance transfer will reduce to 0%."

The T & C's state exactly the same.

I will be checking future statements very carefully.

scotte_2

So, am I the only one that this has happened to?

Milarky

scotte,

Just to be clear. You have been on the 0% for life offer. This has operated successfully till now. You haven't actually been charged any more than the minimum interest (£1) last month. But you are concerned that the figure of 'estimated interest' should not be there?

The offer should not have lapsed for you - even if you missed spending £1 one month for some reason - all that would happen is you would be charged interest on the balance at 6.9% (about 0.561%) in that month and thereafter it would go back to 0% again provided your spending resumed. (I've just checked my old literature on this and it is quite clear on that point).

However the terms of this agreement do include the term (in very small print) that...

[3.4] "If you break this agreement we may withdraw the promotional rate and the remaining balance will revert to the standard rate."

This suggests that you may have missed a minimum payment one month, say, and Barclaycard has noted this. But provided you have made all payments (one reason why a direct debit facilty is strongly recommended in this case) and have simply not spent in a given month this term would not apply.

HTH

scotte_2

Milarky wrote:

scotte,

Just to be clear. You have been on the 0% for life offer. This has operated successfully till now. You haven't actually been charged any more than the minimum interest (£1) last month. But you are concerned that the figure of 'estimated interest' should not be there?

The offer should not have lapsed for you - even if you missed spending £1 one month for some reason - all that would happen is you would be charged interest on the balance at 6.9% (about 0.561%) in that month and thereafter it would go back to 0% again provided your spending resumed. (I've just checked my old literature on this and it is quite clear on that point).

However the terms of this agreement do include the term (in very small print) that...

[3.4] "If you break this agreement we may withdraw the promotional rate and the remaining balance will revert to the standard rate."

This suggests that you may have missed a minimum payment one month, say, and Barclaycard has noted this. But provided you have made all payments (one reason why a direct debit facilty is strongly recommended in this case) and have simply not spent in a given month this term would not apply.

HTH

Thanks for the reply Milarky. Everything you stated in your first paragraph is correct. As you have correctly stated I have only spent my regular £1 donation and I do have a DD set up for the minimum payment, therefore I've never missed a payment.
Do you have a copy of the original T&C's for this offer? If so could you scan them in and send them to me? Not really sure what to do now as I cannot find my original application form and they have yet to get back to me - I'll be phoning them again on Monday though.