Challenge Interest Charges - Even when they are right

pob100

I have a Natwest c/c card. I didn't pay it off one month, and incurred interest fees of about 45 quid. So the following month I paid the balance off in full. I was then very surprised to find 32 pounds of interest charges on the following month's statement. I called them up and said that surely there had been a mistake - as I had paid in full. After some time the call center person managed to explain that if you don't pay in full in any month, not only do you pay interest, you pay interest the following month as well even if you pay in full. I explained that while this may be correct in terms of its T & Cs, I thought it was a stealth charge, which they do not explain on the statement, and in fact willfully obscure this in order to catch people out. After taking up a lot of the call center person's time, I asked politely if there was anything she could do - and a few minutes later she cut 25 pounds off the interest.

So, firstly, be wary of being stung for 2 months interest just for not paying off in full till the second month.

And secondly, even if interest charges are technically correct, its worth a call to see if they will waive them.

kennyjosiah

Hi, similar thing has happened to me - am I being stupid - I dont understand when on the back of the statement it says pay the card statement balance in full by the due date and the interest charge will be debited back to you

example - May statement 700.00 off which total included 20.00 interest charge - paid £700 in full well within the due date have looked and have not had the £20 interest paid back !

Queried with customer services after an age on hold where she had to keep checking - came back with a load of claptrap - bottom line is the back of the statement says and I quote

"if you pay the balance in full, any interest charged for the period from the previous statement to the date of the full repayment will be debited the following month" which I now is legal claptrap and they can turn it around to suit themselves - why do they have to confuse us ???

maybe we should start a new campaign as I think it is totally unacceptable when they say one thing on the monthly statement but never honour it - then try to confuse you with technical jargon about residual interest and has to be EVERY month ???? why does it have to be every month that isnt what the back of the statement says ???

frivolous_fay

kennyjosiah wrote:

"if you pay the balance in full, any interest charged for the period from the previous statement to the date of the full repayment will be debited the following month" which I now is legal claptrap

Allow me to translate:

Say you have a £100 bill and an extra £5 interest has been added.

The £105 includes any applicable interest. They continue adding interest from the date your statement is produced. So, if you pay the £105 a week after your statement is printed, your next statement will have a weeks' interest on it at least.

Probably the only way to get around this is to somehow pay instantly after checking the balance on your card by phone. Me, I have less patience for faffing around, and I usually overpay a few pence / pounds.

Call_Centre_Monkey

kennyjosiah wrote:

maybe we should start a new campaign as I think it is totally unacceptable when they say one thing on the monthly statement but never honour it - then try to confuse you with technical jargon about residual interest and has to be EVERY month ???? why does it have to be every month that isnt what the back of the statement says ???

No, we shouldn't start a new campaign for this. Stay within the terms and conditions and you'll be fine.

I'm fed up of people not sticking to terms and conditions and then not willing to pay interest/charges they've already agreed too. Because of the Credit Card fee campaign, it costs me a lot more to use my card (and associated services, ie ordering copy statements). I don't like having to pay for other peoples ignorance - it's probably not what you want to hear, but it's true.

pob100

Call Centre Monkey, you have a point - BUT - the problem is that c/c operators deliberately obfuscate their charges in order to get extra cash from people who have made what would seem like reasonable (this is arguable though) assumptions. You say you are now paying for others ignorance, but really you have just benefited in the past from the banks ability to hodwink users. Banking services are for everyone - not just the elite intelligensia such as yourself.

Astaroth

How is it reasonable to think that you dont get charged interest? You are told that you get something in the region of "up to 56 days interest free" and then you get charged interest daily. By the time you have received your second statement this will be over the 56 days and therefore you know their is daily interest being charged. Therefore if you wait 2 weeks to pay the bill you will get 2 weeks plus the days it took the statement to get to you in interest to pay on the next bill.

If people are incapable of understanding basic terms and conditions which really are not written in a language just for the elite intelligensia then prehaps people should be tested to make sure they know how many days in a month there are etc to ensure they are intelligent enough for a credit card/ loan/ insurance policy etc?

pob100

Well in the original post I highlighted that I had part paid in one month, and then was charged interest the following month. Which was fine. I paid then paid the full balance and was then charged interest on the next statement. The call center person said that they charged me interest on the full amount, rather than the part paid amount untill the second payment cleared. I guess I made the mistake of thinking that if you pay off the statement in full you won't get charged, when it depends on how long the stuff that makes up the balance has been there. I wanted to point it out and alert people that its possible to get them to waive such charges, even if it contributes to Call Center Monkey getting charged more for other services.

Astaroth - do you really believe that banks T&Cs are so simple? You really don't believe that they deliberately try to trip people up in order to up their revenue? What about the case earlier this year of one of the big c/c firms deliberately bringing forward the payment date for some customers over Xmas to increase late payers over the holidays? Yes people should be careful of T&Cs but I don't think we should castigate those who struggle to fully understand them all.

This website is intended to help educate people about personal finances, becasue of the problem of financial institutions taking advantage of people who had perhaps put too much trust in them. So perhaps , Call Centre Monkey and Astaroth, this is not the place for people to belittle those who have made such mistakes.

Astaroth

Terms and conditions have to be written in "legal speak" so it isnt going to be as easy as reading Heat but if you actually read them they are not difficult to understand - the problem is that the majority of people dont read them.

Your highlighting a point was good, though it is something that has been posted a number of times before. I was not belittling you or anyone else for either making a mistake or for highlighting a "problem" that others may not have relised. I was belittling the idea that a compaign should be started to prevent banks from being able to charge interest.

Call_Centre_Monkey

pob100 wrote:

What about the case earlier this year of one of the big c/c firms deliberately bringing forward the payment date for some customers over Xmas to increase late payers over the holidays?

I'm sure it wasn't deliberate. I know with HBOS and Sainsburys cards, the statements get printed on the same working day, every month. Obviously this varies month to month depending on weekends, and the occasional bank holiday. If the payment date is a little earlier, then the statement will be sent earlier too. For instance, there were a lot of cards due for around 3rd/4th January 2006, but it was just because the way the weekends fell for the printing of the statement. The statement would still have been printed on the Xth working day and would still have Y days to pay.

pob100

You're sure it wasn't deliberate? Barclaycard admitted it. Here's a link to the BBC atricle...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/moneybox/4681228.stm

Call_Centre_Monkey

pob100 wrote:

You're sure it wasn't deliberate? Barclaycard admitted it. Here's a link to the BBC atricle...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/moneybox/4681228.stm

Unless I missed it, it doesn't mention Barclaycard admitting it in that article. As I say, I know other banks have different methods for statement dates etc, but I know in the case of some it was just the way the dates fell for that period.