Statement Definition

jonejon

Quick question, if a document says 'your October statement', does it mean

1. Your statement covering the October period
2. A statement raised on the 1st October

Thanks in advance.

kalaika

It might mean either.

Depends on the supplier. What is it? Are there are other dates on it?

jonejon

My credit card T&C's state on them interest free until your October statement, so I assumed this is the statement covering October, as a statement is

'A written report that quantitatively summarizes the financial status of an organization for a stated period of time.'

So as it's my "October" statement it should cover the period of "October", however the card company says its the statement produced in October.

Therefore I just wanted to get people's opinion on what a October Statement means to them, as the Regulations require that plain and intelligible language is used in consumer contracts

CLAPTON

in my experience, an October statement would mean one dated sometime in october (I'm assuming monthly statements here)

LongTermLurker

It's the statement produced on your statement date in October, not necessarily the 1st. It will cover the period from the same date last month.

I've never had a credit card where any statement covers the first to last day of a calendar month, so your option 1 wouldn't fit because it would be some part of September plus some part of October. The statement will show exactly what period is covered, even if your first transaction was 5 days into the period.

edit - your assumption above is wrong

My credit card T&C's state on them interest free until your October statement

If your statement is produced on 26th October, be aware that you then have x number of days to pay, say Direct Debit taken on 7 November. However, you are on 0% until your October statement day, so you need to ensure you're fully paid up before that day, not the November collection day - if not, you'll pay interest from 26 Oct - 7 Nov.

jonejon

My statements do indeed run from the 1st of the month to the end of the month.

My first statement was from the 22nd December to the 31st December and all future statements run from the 1st to the eom

jonejon

LongTermLurker, I agree with you about the interest being charged between the statement date and the payment, but its the definition of October Statement that I'm querying

If I went into a bank and asked for a copy of my October Statement I would receive a statement covering the 1st-31st Oct.

The credit card company balanced my first statement as a part month 22nd Dec-31st I would not call this my January statement.

NickX

I have found that I only receive one statement per month, I would say the October Statement is the one with an October date (anything from 1st October to 31st October).

If your 0% deal ended on your October statement, I would say you had to clear the balance in full the day before that October statement is produced to avoid being charged interest.

As we are now in November, I guess that didn't happen and they have charged you interest ?

LongTermLurker

Thanks Nick - I was hoping someone would come along to back me up.

Jonejon, I think it's a fluke that your statement runs from the first of the month. I (and NickX) have and have had a wide variety of credit cards and I don't think any of my statements have arrived on the same date, so my October statement would cover all of October up to the statement date, but would also cover a portion of September as well.

In your case your October statement was produced on 31 October and covered the whole of October, so it's the same.

NickX

Right, was this an MBNA run card by any chance ? Or perhaps a Capital One card ?

Their deals usually run to a particular statement date. In your case the Statement Date was the 1st October. This is your October Statement. To avoid interest you would have needed to clear the account by 30th September (i.e. before your October statement).

TIP : In cases such as this (especially MBNA \ Capital One deals) you can usually push an extra month of promotion by pushing the Statement Date right to the end of the month - e.g. 28th of the month to allow for the shortest month. However, as a disclaimer do check your specific Terms and Conditions before applying such practice as the Providers can change the goalposts at any stage.

LongTermLurker

NickX wrote: »

Right, was this an MBNA run card by any chance ? Or perhaps a Capital One card ?

Their deals usually run to a particular statement date. In your case the Statement Date was the 1st October. This is your October Statement. To avoid interest you would have needed to clear the account by 30th September (i.e. before your October statement).

My first statement was from the 22nd December to the 31st December and all future statements run from the 1st to the eom

Ah, that might make sense, and would be clear because the statement will say something like "this statement covers the period from 1 September to 30 September".

Jonejon, your second billing cycle ran from 1/1/09 - 31/1/09 and then you received a statement to that effect on 1 Feb, is that right? So on 1 Feb you received your February statement, which covered dues for the whole of January.

Thus as Nick says, you needed to clear your debt before the end of September. It's not wrong, but I admit its quite sneaky as it must make a lot of people think they have a month more than they actually do.