My increase on my egg card is to go up by six per cent.

billion25

Anyway this is going off topic....as far as I am concerned Egg are in the wrong, they should have taken the small chink in their profits on the chin rather than recouping the revenue in a way that adversly affects the customer.[/QUOTE]

You mean small increase in their losses...Egg doesn't make any money. Egg's primary responsibility is to its shareholders (or rather Prudential's shareholders). These shareholders are the people have actually invested their hard earned money and expect to get some kind of return on it.

There are dozens of credit card issuers in the UK. Surely you can transfer a balance at a lower rate to one of them? If not,it would imply that you are a very risky customer, and if so Egg is acting reasonably by increasing your rate to compensate for that risk.

Murray

The Shareholders are not my concern. They had the money to invest knowing that their is an element of risk involved.

I am one of the lucky ones, I am in a position to pay off this card and go elsewhere and I intend to. A 1% rise doesnt make much difference to me but it is the principle - you could say that this is the straw that broke the camels back!

:mad:

mr-mac_3

billion25 wrote:

There are dozens of credit card issuers in the UK. Surely you can transfer a balance at a lower rate to one of them? If not,it would imply that you are a very risky customer, and if so Egg is acting reasonably by increasing your rate to compensate for that risk.

What rubbish.... I just hope you never end up in this situation and have it made worse by a company who change it's product completely to squeeze every last ounce from you....

They took me and others on at a certain product rate (the only thing they could do is either raise or lower the rate on the product, ie all the cards)....

Now they change their mind and say actually no the product you took out doesn't work like that anymore we are going to really stuff it to let us reduce the price to a few good customers.... (I bet they are increasing more customers rates than they are reducing them)

Well done egg... If only one thing at least hey can turn round and say hey look we were right look how many of the customers we thought were not so good have defaulted (well what do you expect with a rise to 21.9%). I think we have a good example of a self fulfilling prophecy....

Also to those saying well you knew the T&C etc... etc... well true but would you still say that if a credit card company you were with increased the intrest rate form say 14% to 100%??? No of course not they wouldn't get away with it so when does it change from "well it's on the T&C's" to "Illeagal"....

TBH a disclaimer in the T&C to say they can change what they want and the people saying well you knew that at the start basically means they could add that they sold your soul to the Devil to the contract... Doesn't mean it's legal for them to do that....

Joe_Bloggs

I closed my egg 'green' card last month as 6% is at least what you will pay on the egg money 0% anniversary deal.
I got my egg money email today indicating that my rate has gone up 1% to 16.9%. This is very poor rate for a card advertised as 6.9% APR typical. Ironically they pay me interest on the small positive balance I keep on the card for emergencies. Is there any hope of an increase in the 4% in credit balance rate following the base rate increase.
J_B.

pinkfluffybabe

Joe_Bloggs wrote:

I closed my egg 'green' card last month as 6% is at least what you will pay on the egg money 0% anniversary deal.
I got my egg money email today indicating that my rate has gone up 1% to 16.9%. This is very poor rate for a card advertised as 6.9% APR typical. Ironically they pay me interest on the small positive balance I keep on the card for emergencies. Is there any hope of an increase in the 4% in credit balance rate following the base rate increase.
J_B.

Doubt it very much tbh!

brightonman_2

I have to say that I'm somewhat puzzled by those posting on this thread who appear to be supporting what Egg has done and adding an extra kick in the teeth to those who, like me, have been making strenous efforts to control our debts and who, again like me, will find it increasingly difficult now that an additional SIX percent interest is being levied against us.

The whole point, I thought, of this site was for people to find support and useful suggestions, rather than patronising comments or direct quotes from Terms and Conditions which, believe me, I have read many times before but which can still hardly justify what amounts to an act of piracy by one of the country's major financial institutions.

The fact is that such an overnight hike in rates is, in my experience, completely unprecedented, particularly when delivered en masse in the way that this has been done. Effectively, it is also a political statement -- it is making an arbitrary class distinction based on data that may have little relevance to the facts of people's everyday lives. We may have seen this on the grey fringes of financial services, but never so blatently from a big brand bank.

For example, I'm self-employed: does that make me a bad person? Does the fact that some months my business makes more than in other months make me a 'bad risk', even if I have always made the payments? If Egg really wanted to be able to claim that they were basing their interest rates on our 'relationship' with them, then they should have taken a great deal more trouble to conduct personal interviews when we first signed up for their products, rather than arbitrarily hammering those who they have, without explanation, deemed to be 'high risk'.

In my experience, the kind of people who work in nice, steady, 9-5 bank jobs have often shown a complete lack of understanding of what it's like to run a business. And since I run a business myself, I have to say that ethically, the way Egg is treating its customers is abhorrent. I would NEVER treat my customers in this way.

And as for Egg's shareholders -- caveat emptor. Whenever you buy stocks, shares, insurance bonds or anything of the kind, you are warned that past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance etc. Shares are a high risk investment, and if you're not daft, you spread your risk. I know: I used to work in financial services.

The irony? As one of the early takers of Egg's products, I held a small number of their shares until the end of last year, but because their results were so poor, I sold them. Which is exactly what the rest of Egg's shareholders can do if they have any sense or morals.

Joe_Bloggs

@pinkfluffybabe
What do you doubt ? I guess it is the increase in the 4% in credit balance rate.
The egg 'money' is still a good card but there is always time for egg to wreck it with rule changes.
J_B.

sicker

pinkfluffybabe, You could be lucky, I've just had my Ing interest raised from 4.5% to 4.75%. Let's hope Egg Money do the same.

John

elhadders

My APR has gone up 2% to 17.9%

Not quite sure what logic they have applied in doing this - I don't have a balance on the card, having stopped using it about three years ago when the cashback went shooting through the floor! Reckon airmiles are a better bet now!

My question (and in asking, I sincerely apologise to those who are struggling with their cards and are not in a position to do this) is whether it's even worth me keeping the card at all. It's my backup credit card anyway, just in case my usual one gets refused for any reason. Is that excessive security? I haven't looked around at all, but I bet egg are not the best rate around if I wanted to cancel it and open another one? Or is it counter-productive in terms of credit rating to have a credit card that you never use?

Booby's_Place

I have read through this thread over the last hour or so, and I feel obliged to correct a number of comments.

Firstly Egg does not make extortionate profits at the expense of it's customers. The amount of bad debt which Egg has more than offsets the profits, and as such this type of pricing is inevitable. The Prudential reports a loss of £39m for the first half of 2006 from Egg itself. To describe Egg as another rip off bank is therefore somewhat mis-placed. Higher risk customers = more bad debt = less profit. Therefore charging a higher rate of interest to higher risk customers makes good business sense.

Secondly, regardless of what criteria Egg have used to determine the rate applied to individuals cards, it will always be perceived as unfair by some/most. "Why me? I'm not that bad!" is inevitably the cry.

Thirdly. Egg is no longer listed on the stock market, is not looking for a buyer etc. Prudential bought the listed shares back some time ago. So there would appear to be no ulterior motive of "making itself look more attractive to potential buyers".

I hope that this helps put some of the previous comments into perspective!