Natwest Credit Card - a warning!!!

shilcor

I took out a Natwest credit card back in November last year where the deal with the card was 9 months interest free for purchases and balance transfers. The small print on the credit agreement sent to me when I took out the card said that the interest rate was 0% for "9 months from the account opening" which according to my calculations was 23rd August 2006 since the date my account was opened was 23rd November 2005. I made a final payment to clear the remaining balance on 15th August this year, thus clearing it within 9 months of the account opening date. When my next statement arrived, surprise, surprise, it had an interest charge of 5.20 on it! Their customer services guy I talked to reckoned that because the regular statement date was the 5th of every month, I should have cleared the balance by 5th August to avoid interest charges but agreed that it was misleading and suggested that I write in to request that the charge be cancelled because he didn't have the authority to refund it himself. I'm still waiting for a reply so may have to pay the charge to avoid further penalties but this is just a warning to anyone else with a Natwest card - the words "9 months from account opening" seem to mean "9 months from the statement date in month that the account opened" as far as Natwest are concerned.

The_Boss

Interesting, as my account on the same deal was also opened on November 23rd! I'm different in that I cant pay it off in full yet.

Are you going to try to get a new offer out of them? I'd be interesting in hearing how you get on if so. Also did they write to you offering a gold card upgrade?

shilcor

I haven't had any written response to my letter yet so will have to pay the outstanding balance soon (which is just the interest) and if they don't agree to refund the charge I'll put it down to experience because for a fiver it's not worth the hassle to pursue it further. It's a Platinum Card and I don't particularly want another deal as they are only likely to offer a reduced interest rate, not another 0% deal so I'll close the account as soon as it's completely cleared.
I'm pretty much finished with stoozing because the credit limits I seem to be given now are usually only around 2500 and by the time I pay a balance transfer fee it's hardly worth the effort. My credit rating is excellent with no missed payments or big outstanding balances so I'm guessing that my scoring indicates to the card companies that they are not going to make any money out of me so they don't give me a decent opening credit limit.

Moggles_2

Thanks for your feedback, which warns others. This is the second post in two days about this 0% NatWest deal.

Lenders vary, as with everything else, in the way they work out promotion periods, but almost all are circumspect about the expiry date, which is seldom stated anywhere in the paperwork.

Yet most require customers to phone and activate the card on receipt and a Freefone number is very often provided, so this is the ideal opportunity to find out exactly where you stand, rather than rely on your own calculations.

Customers' misunderstanding of the Ts & Cs or plain forgetfulness is one of the ways lenders claw back the costs of their 0% promotions, so we cannot rely on them to spell out exactly when we should pay up!

KathrynPenguin

I've been hit by this too and mine is for £53! Advisor was very unhelpful as was supervisor when I phoned. I will also be writing but would love to know your outcome.

Bisoy

I will always ring them usually 2 months before the promo perid ends and ask when is the exact date then double check after 2 weeks to avoid being caught.

shilcor

For those interested in the outcome of my complaint letter, I had a call from Natwest over the weekend to say that they had refunded the interest charge. They said the "error" was caused by the way my account was originally set up but I don't believe that for a minute and suspect that they simply backed down because the tone of my letter suggested that I wasn't going to give in without a fight. Just proves that it pays to complain !

Moggles_2

Congratulations, shilcor & thanks for keeping us posted.

Flomay_2

Thanks for the warning - my NatWest 0% runs out beginning of November, so i'll double check exactly when to avoid this.

Glad you got your money back.