Rate Jacking Sucesses/failures

scott_lithgows

Virgin

24.9% to 29.9%

Phoned up inteding to play "hard ball" with them and get it back down to lower than 20% (only use it for decent 0% offers),girl closed it straight away,no offers to keep it open.

Result is after latest BT deal is over,i,ll owe £50 at 24.9% till paid off.Down to 16 cards now!!!

daveyh62

Hellome11...

I've just been told by the Halifax that I shouldn't bother applying for a loan with them, even though I bank there, due to closing my Halifax 1 card in April after refusing a rate increase from 21% to 25%. I owe them just over £6k, pay off the minimum amount each month - which I think will have me clearing the debt in 40-odd years. As I'm 50 in a couple of months, I doubt I'll be around then! I was thinking of calling them and asking if there's any way of freezing the balance and paying it off at maybe £75 a month. It may take nearly 10 years but at least I should get it paid off before I pop my clogs I think I'll phone them anyway and ask them why they've got me marked down as a credit risk.

John_Pierpoint

It is pretty obvious?

izools

Despite the brief nature of John's post, it is correct daveyh62.

You owe a much larger amount on your credit card than you can really afford / handle. You have a £6K balance and are only paying the minimum - that's why Halifax have you down as a credit risk.

If you had a lower balance or higher income and were therefore making significant inroads into clearing the card balance your risk with Halifax would obviously be lower. It might however be worth looking for a 0% deal elsewhere if you've thus far kept up to date with repayments.

hellome11

hellome11 wrote: »

I've been ratejacked by Barclaycard, it was 12.9% then went to 16.9% and will increase again to 21.9% in January.

Update on the above, I called them to close the account and keep the current rate of 16.9%. They said my account looked well handled so could I give them a week to review it before closing. Anyway a week later I've got an email confirming I can keep the current rate of 16.9%.

I wish I'd known about this site earlier this year and maybe I'd still have the 12.9% !

Anyway thanks to this site I'm not getting hit with 5% on £6K from January, cheers :T

daveclev

In September Barclaycard jacked my rate from 21-24% on an account that had not seen a late payment in years because of the direct debit in place although I suspect it is no coincidence that it happened only 2 months after I transferred some of the balance to MBNA.

Within weeks of the rate jack they wrote to me increasing my credit limit from £5800 to £9800!! Talk about trying to take advantage of people at a time when they need their credit cards most!!!

I rang them and got the scripted reply from the barely English speaking operator (it was like they were reading the letter that they sent me) then the same from his supervisor and then his supervisor. They said that I could accept the new rate or close the account although they did offer a £20 refund to cover the cost of my call which was nearly an hour at 5.5p per minute with a 12.5p set up charge. I asked for it to be escalated to a formal complaint and specifically asked for written replies so I ignored the first 7 calls from them until I could take no more and answered one to reiterate my request for a written response. I finally received one which virtually quoted the letter again butconfirmed they had credited £5 for the cost of the call!! Interestingly the letter referred to their "risk based approach to lending" which I thought was odd as they increased my rate because I had presumably become a higher risk yet they were happy to increase their exposure to my risk by 70%!! The complaint continues.

Unfortunately I opened a new bank account while all this was happening and had the usual farce when trying to change direct debits so I have now missed some payments which are hampering my attempts to find a new card provider.

What happened to the days when you could trust your bank?!!!

drumspyce

Today received a letter from VIRGIN stating my already excessive 21.9% interest rate was going up to 25.9%. I am desperately trying to turn my finances around and this has severely irritated me, not least that the minimum payments on my account were doubled last year. I called to say I didn't want this new rate. The guy on the phone plainly couldn't give a damn and that's how it goes - another card bites the dust. What makes me mad is that I have NEVER missed a payment on this card. Richard Branson - respect? I don't think so.

tabbiecatz

Who: BarclayCard

Did you get the rate reduced: yes. The increase was from 16.9% to 21.9% unless I called to reject.

My tale: I called to decline the increased rate and close the account, but my call was transferred to customer loyalty department who said because I had always paid on time and never been over my credit limit, they were willing to leave my interest rate unchanged. I tried to get the rate reduced further by telling them I would switch to a zero prcent deal soon, so the lady put a note on the account and said to ring back in a month for a further APR reduction to 8%. I will certainly be ringing again in a month!

Just goes to show, if you dont call, you never know.

Darcy123_2

I have received a letter today from Natwest regarding my Advantage Gold Credit Card saying that they are increasing my interest rate from 18.32% to 20.83%. I have no idea why and have been a Natwest customer for 30 years. I will pay off balance in full and cut up the card!

partyisover

deleted, bank error