Made a right mess of balance transfer

frogga

Hi Guys,

Really need your advice.

I had a M&S card that I owed £3700 and wanted to balance transfer on as I was coming to the end of the 0% thing. So, I applied for Virgin Credit Card online at 0% but heard nothing. They said they would take a few weeks to get in touch.

The next day I went to pay some money into my account at Abbey and they offered me a 0% balance transfer and said I had been accepted straight away. So I gave them the details of the M&S card and within a few days it was paid off. I thought that if I was sucessful with Virgin then I'd just say "no thanks it's too late".

I was supprised to find a Virgin Credit Card on my doorstep this morning so I was actually sucessfull. I decided I'd just phone up and cancel it. But, M&S just phoned to say that Virgin has also just paid £3700 into the account so now I'm £3700 in credit!!!

Now what do I do??? I want Virgin to take the money back off M&S but I'm gonna be charged a fee aren't I? I applied for the card and gave details of M&S but never actually said "Ok, good do it then" I assumed I'd been unsucessful. I guess this is gonna cost me big time for the fee isn't it? I feel like such a pratt. This always happens. Everytime I try to sort things out I always mess it up and end up costing us money

Any advice anyone? Please x

binaryuniverse

LOL. I do find it somewhat odd that you didn't try phoning Virgin for an update before you did the 2nd transfer.
Anyways, I'd get on the phone to M&S pronto and explain the situation. I don't know if they'll let you have the cash but you never know. But if you leave it you are running the risk of a fraud investigation.

INT1

Ask Virgin to recall the funds and submit an indemnity, otherwise phone the customer services number with the account your in credit and request they refund your credit balance to your bank account.

frogga

binaryuniverse wrote: »

LOL. I do find it somewhat odd that you didn't try phoning Virgin for an update before you did the 2nd transfer.
QUOTE]

Yeh well that's cause I'm REALLY thick!

I just DIDN'T think!! I really didn't think that just because I'd asked them to pay it off that they actually would!!!

Anyway, an update ~ Virgin have been very kind and said that they will forget the charge and I just need to get the money back to them. They said ask M&S to put it into my bank account and then pay them off. M&S said that no way will they do that and something about fraud like you just said!!! They said Virgin have to "send an indemnity for payment made in error" but Virgin wont do that cause they said it wasnt their error!!!

OMG it's such a mess!! SO now I'm really frightened that I'm gonna have a policeman arrest em for fraud!!! Virgin wont ask for the money back and M&S wont give it!!!

Now what do I do???

INT1

I don't think you will get the police after you!

Credit card companies have to be careful though and adhere to money laundering regulations, they will just be following the procedures they have in place.

I'm sure they will be obliging and refund you the money back. It is clearly an error and your not trying to pull a fast one.

Kashim

I have a similar problem with Halifax Mastercard when I tried clearing a balance of 3k. I transferred more than than from another card, where I assumed they'll just give back the credit difference into my bank account. However, I was wrong, infact they have a clause 7.7 in small print that the execess monay must go back to the source i.e. Amazon CC even if I wanted to close Halifax MC account.

Funnily, they will allow me to withdraw cash from ATM or do a cheque tfr, but that will incur a fee, what an unjust clause hippocritical clause, which leads to unjust enrichment.

Now, I'm using the Halifax card to run the balance to zero, by paying for goods and services with Halifax MC on behalf of my family and friends and getting them to pay me cash directly.

I can't believe Halifax can put such a clause on their T&C and get away with it.

Regards, Kash

frogga

aldo wrote: »

It is clearly an error and your not trying to pull a fast one.

Absolutely !! I'm not bright enough to pull a fast one evidently!!! :rolleyes:

Well, thank God the two smashing gentleman who delt with me from Virgin and M&S have sorted it all out. M&S have said they will just put the money back on the Virgin card and they wont charge me. Virgin will close that credit card once the money is back and they wont charge me either. Thank God :T and thanks to you two aldo and binaryuniverse for your comments. It helped to read some calming words xx :A

Well, now gonna go and sit upstairs away from the tadpoles ears and blub with the relief of it all Let this be a lesson to me :rolleyes:

Moggles_2

frogga wrote: »

Well, thank God the two smashing gentleman from Virgin and M&S have sorted it all out. M&S have said they will just put the money back on the Virgin card and they wont charge me. Virgin will close that credit card once the money is back and they wont charge me either. Thank God and thanks to you two aldo and binaryuniverse for your comments. It helped to read some calming words. Well, now gonna go and sit upstairs away from the tadpoles ears and blub with the relief of it all. Let this be a lesson to me.

Thanks for posting.

Having applied for a new credit card and requested a BT, it wasn't very clever to accept a subsequent offer of a BT from another cc provider, as I think you realise. You can avoid all the uncertainty in future though.

With most credit cards, you either complete the BT request during the application process or wait until the card arrives. IMO, it's best to wait until the activation call and request your BT over the phone (As with Virgin, there's often a dedicated, Freephone number for this.) That way you keep your options open, avoid unwanted partial transfers, paying the same card twice etc. and retain some control over exactly what happens when. Virgin is an efficient operation, but the frequency of slip-ups that crop up on this board has convinced me it's safer to wait until receipt of your new card and credit limit. If something goes wrong, BTs are not easy to reverse and, in attempting this, you could incur two BT fees.

From feedback here, these issues are seldom resolved quickly. Best advice is to avoid a positive balance wherever possible. The larger the sum involved, the greater the risks.

INT1

No probs, if you have not got many credit cards running, you might want to keep the Virgin account open for future Balance transfer deals,If you can resist the urge not to spend, it's always worth having as a back up.

I have just been offered on my MBNA card a rate of 0.9% (3% fee) Luckily I have not got a balance to transfer but it's nice to know they periodically offer these types of deals.