Stoozing mistake -aarrgghhh!!!!

nogoodwithmoney11111

Hi everyone. Now that I am debt free I have decided to (very excitedly I must add) try to start MAKING money from my cards!
I have 5 credit cards and was phoning them up (great when you have paid them off and its not them phoning you!!) to see what ryes and offers they would give me. The virgin cc was doing 0% for 12 months and I thought stoozing! Quids in! The very nice salesperson told me that they can transfer cash direct into current account no hassle and get the money next day. Simple.

I took out 11k but failed to realise that this would cost me 4%, or £440 so my statement balance is now 11440. I now need to make 440 on interest in 1 year or I will actually lose out ( and deal with the temptation of not spending 11k in a bank account which is the most amount in the bank I have ever had. I know it's not actually my money...

Have I done this wrong? I can't find any account that pays more than 4% net, not even an ISA.

Am I just going to have to chalk this up to experience???

Thanks for any suggestions.

chattychappy

How did you not realise there was a 4% fee? Did they not tell you at the time of the transfer? In my experience they always do, plus it's made clear in T+Cs and elsewhere that a fee applies for such transactions. And did you really expect free money for a year at no cost at all?

Oh dear...


Yeah chalk it up to experience. Get what interest you can on the money and be sure to pay back on time.

IF they really didn't mention the fee at the time of the transfer then perhaps you could argue for the whole thing to be reversed, but I think it would be a struggle.

questionabout

£440 for what is effectively a £11,000 "loan" is not that bad :j

You should probably put say £10,000 in a high interest account, shop round and you should find a 3% account. Then be creative with the £1000 and try turn it in to £1400 throught things like free matched bets (see the Gambling Introductory Loophole forums on here).

Alternatively, I may be wrong but under the consumer act I think you may have a 7 day cooling off period if its a new financial product taking out. You may be able to cancel, return the funds to Virgin but your best double checking with more experienced members on here.

nogoodwithmoney11111

Thanks,

They did say it would be 4% but I never thought to actually convert this into £ and p!!! I just assumed that stoozing would make me money (a logical assumption or so i thought as there is a whole thread developed for it and also Martin Lewis talked about it on GMTV.)

So how does it work? I can appreciate how, mathematically, it works, but no card i can see lets you take cash out for less than 2.9% or 3% and no savings account pays more than that so how on earth can anyone make money from it without taking additional risks such as investing in shares??????

Yours,

STUMPED of STUMPEDVILLE

CLAPTON

stoozing is effectively dead and has been for some time because of low interest rates and the BT fee

nogoodwithmoney11111

"CLAPTON - stoozing is effectively dead and has been for some time because of low interest rates and the BT fee"

hold on....[jumps around room swearing profusely]...guess I will chalk that up to experience!!!:o:o:o:o:o

The suggestion of questionabout is interesting but to be honest I would probably end up losing our even more.

I have found a 1 year bond with Northern Rock that pays 3% so I will lose out on £110 and this will also mean I dont have the temptation of spending any of it.

So thats £9 a month down this year:(:(:(:(:( I will stick to not getting into debt rather than trying to make profit.

questionabout

You could lend the money back out - check out Zopa. :beer:

From their front page:

"Over the last 12 months Zopa lenders have made an annual return of 8.3%"

Even if you don't get 8.3% you should still be able to get 5-6%. :T

questionabout

...or you could lend £400 to me and I will pay you back £1000 on the 1st June 2011.

I'm serious too, I really want the new iPhone

YorkshireBoy

nogoodwithmoney11111 wrote: »

I have found a 1 year bond with Northern Rock that pays 3% so I will lose out on £110

A pair of LTSB Vantage accounts (which is where £21K of my stooz pot is) will net you 3.2% after basic rate tax.

If you have a non-tax paying spouse you'll obviously get the whole 4%.

Note, this is a variable interest rate.

chattychappy

nogoodwithmoney11111 wrote: »

So how does it work? I can appreciate how, mathematically, it works, but no card i can see lets you take cash out for less than 2.9% or 3% and no savings account pays more than that so how on earth can anyone make money from it without taking additional risks such as investing in shares??????

Yep, they don't make anything (or very little). Years ago there were cards that offered no fee, low fee or a capped fee (eg £50). And of course savings rates were better.

Bear in mind that you need to do slightly better than the fee to be quids in. Eg if your fee is 4%, remember that is on the amount of the initial transfer. But during the year you have to pay some of it back. So effectively you are paying a little more than that as a %.

hock79

I would phone them up try my hardest to get out of it, like questionabout mentions, there may be a cooling off period. You could try a sob story about something you were going to spend the money on falling through, you never know, you may get someone sympathetic on the other end of the line.:)

Paying that minimum payment every month on money you've not spent or benefited from in any way will be a killer.