Rate Jacking and Opting Out

zoony67

Just received letter from Virgin Today letting me know they are going to jack up my oustanding balance to 29.4% have approx 7k on it. I cannot afford to pay it all off and have been making min payments without any defaults.

They say I can opt out and they will close the account and I then continue making payments until the balance is cleared.

If I decided to opt out will the account be frozen at the current interest rate ?
I have read here that if you opt out it will freeze the account and you will not be able to borrow anymore money, now does that mean that you will not be able to borrow further funds on the card or does that mean you will not be able to borrow any more from anywhere ?

I don;t want to make a wrong move which will cause me credit restriction elsewhere.

Thanks

TFD_2

zoony67 wrote: »

Just received letter from Virgin Today letting me know they are going to jack up my oustanding balance to 29.4% have approx 7k on it. I cannot afford to pay it all off and have been making min payments without any defaults.

They say I can opt out and they will close the account and I then continue making payments until the balance is cleared.

If I decided to opt out will the account be frozen at the current interest rate ?
I have read here that if you opt out it will freeze the account and you will not be able to borrow anymore money, now does that mean that you will not be able to borrow further funds on the card or does that mean you will not be able to borrow any more from anywhere ?

I don;t want to make a wrong move which will cause me credit restriction elsewhere.

Thanks

It just means you won't be able to borrow more from Virgin. It won't affect you borrowing elsewhere.

By the way, really do try to pay even slightly more than the minimum payment. Even an extra 20 quid a month thrown at it will take years off the time taken to repay.

zoony67

Thanks TFD for that, I am planning to actually pay of the bulk of this card but not for six months and I didnt want to compromise my chances on my credit file, I suppose I must also consider that is I opt out as the card is under the MBNA umberella they may not like me as a future customer should I ever require credit and MBNA is involved along the line, would this be a correct view ?