The Best Balance Transfers article discussion area

Moggles_2

Originally Posted by Muz45
I haven't missed a payment and I've always payed more than my minimum payment and always on time.

What does your previous monthly statement say? If you do not have the paper statement to hand, you can check online.

neyland

Moggles wrote: »

Hi neyland

Welcome to MSE & the credit card boards!

This unwelcome development has been reported to this forum by new as well as existing Barclaycard customers in recent weeks.

It shouldn't be allowed, IMO, but unfortunately the Ts & Cs state "We reserve the right to refuse a credit card balance transfer .." so there's nothing you can do about it, other than threaten to close the account. You never know, you might be offered an incentive to stay

Very best
M

Moggles,

Thanks for your speedy reply, just thought i'd share my success after complaining via e-mail to Barclaycard - the e-mail went basically as follows:

I am sorry to learn that you were given incorrect information in reply to your enquiry. Our staff are trained to the highest standards and it is not our intention to mislead or misinform our customers in any way.

We aim to provide an excellent service to our customers and feedback is vital to us in achieving this objective. I can therefore assure you that this matter will be brought to the attention of the member of staff involved to determine whether further training is required.

---

Anyway just shows that a bit of determination and a strongly worded letter/e-mail can certainly get you somewhere.

Thanks again.:j

Muz45

Moggles wrote: »

What does your previous monthly statement say? If you do not have the paper statement to hand, you can check online.

It does say that my promotional interest rate will come to an end on the 16/10/2007, i didn't notice it, the thing is though i got the advice from this site for a card with life of balance transfer.

YorkshireBoy

Muz45 wrote: »

It does say that my promotional interest rate will come to an end on the 16/10/2007, i didn't notice it, the thing is though i got the advice from this site for a card with life of balance transfer.

The M&S card offered a LOB rate for transfers actioned within the first 6 months only.

Is the message just letting you know that anything you transfer now will be at the standard rate...or are you saying you are paying 18.9% interest now?

niceshoes_2

Hi, I currently have a loan with cahoot loan with a balance of £4800 on it. I have just paid off my virgin card and rang to see if they would offer me any deals but the best they would offer was 0% until Sept 2008 but with a 3% fee - they would not budge on the fee, even though some on the boards have reported some success with getting the fee waivered. I didn't think that this would be cost effeective with the 3% fee and relatively short 0% period, so declined the offer.

I am therefore looking for another way to get my loan transferred to my credit card and hope to be able to get the loan paid off quicker. I would ideally like a 0% with no fee (wouldn't we all!)

I have a Virgin card (5400 limit, no debt) & M & S more than card (4000 limit - no debt but cancelled today as they would not give me any BT offer at all-would not even entertain the idea) I have a good credit history and have always paid my bills on time and have always got good limits. I also have a barclaycard platinum with a limit of £5000 odd but have used the 0% on new purchases offer. I have the money sitting in my bank account to pay this off (currently owing £1600) It also offered 0% BT (2.5% fee) for 14 months. Opened in November to take advantage of the £50 voucher offer.

I have had Mint in the past and Egg and think that I would be able to reapply for both of these.

My question is what is the best way to transfer the loan. I will able to pay £150.00 per month off the balance, compared to the £130 loan payment, £22.71 of which is interest - so only actually paying £108.00 off the balance each month.

I'm really looking for the best way to go about this so I can get the cahoot loan paid off a whole lot quicker than I am paying it off now!

Thanks to any one who can offer any advice.

YorkshireBoy

What's the APR on the Cahoot loan, and how long does it have to run?

niceshoes_2

The loan was taken out for £9000 @ 5.7% over 83 months. Interest payable is £1885.22 = total repayable £10885.22. Monthly repayments £129.59 per month. No payment protection.

I've got 45 more months left on the Cahoot loan and the APR is 5.7% fixed rate.

I am a bit confused as my settlement balance is £5382.13? Not sure how I got to my sums of £4831 now.

I thought that for every payment I made, £106.88 was capital repayment with £22.00 being interest repayment.

I worked this out by calculating the amount of intereste divided by the number of months and got £22.71 interest per month.

This then bought me to my figure of £4831 owing + one months interest payment when I wanted to settle the loan - but these figures obviously now do not add up as I have rang cahoot for my settlement figure?

I thought that I would have to pay the capital part of the loan plus 1 months interest off if I wanted to clear the loan?

HTH - thanks Yorkshire Boy

YorkshireBoy

The Virgin offer of a 3% BT fee for 0% for 9 months equates to an APR of roughly 4%...a reduction of nearly 30%. Why didn't you take it? (having said that, I see the limit isn't big enough now...could you get the difference from somewhere/someone else?).

I don't know your circumstances, but you seem to have a lot of unused credit available to you. This will be taken into account when you apply for other cards (in your search for 0% fee-free deals) and could be a problem since to get a fee-free deal you'll need to apply for two cards (Egg Money and AN Other card).

In your position, and if you're sure 0% deals will still be around when it comes time to switch, I'd probably try to get the Virgin limit increased and BT the loan to them. Then tidy up your credit file to get rid of some of the available credit to put yourself in the best position come August when you have to switch the debt.

Alternatively, you may wish to consider using Egg Money and a LOB card. However, these offers are not as good as they once were and so may not offer much of a saving for you.

niceshoes_2

I'm very confused about my loan = my total repayment is £10885 over the full 83 months.

If my settlement fee is £5382 and I have already made 38 x £129.95 payments already (£4938) I will have paid cahoot £10302.00 if I was to settle now.

This is £565 less than what my total repayment is if I leave the loan until the full term.

Taking into acount that Virgin will charge my 3% BT - this is £160.00 - then the fact that I would prob have to pay another BT fee again at the end of the deal, is it actually worth moving the loan? Am I missing something obvious here???

Sorry for being dense, I did not realise how complicated a loan was before I started looking into this and I now realise that your repayment does not go off the loan the way I thought it did?

Moggles_2

Originally Posted by niceshoes
I currently have a loan with Cahoot with a balance of £4800... I am looking for a way to get my loan transferred to my credit card and hope to be able to get the loan paid off quicker.

Lots to weigh up here. Transferring a loan to a credit card is not straightforward. Only a few rather special credit cards have this capability.(Please see #752 above for details)

Luckily, you have one of them already - Virgin. As you applied for Barclaycard in November, I would certainly reconsider Virgin, rather than submit another credit card application. When requesting a transfer of funds over the phone, it's sometimes possible to wheedle a little more than 95% of your credit limit from them

The risk in paying off a loan this way is that you can't be sure of another 0% credit card offer with a sufficient credit limit in X months time when your current 0% deal ends and the interest rate jumps to anything from 15.9% to 27.9% APR or higher:eek:
Always bear in mind that the reason Virgin can afford to lend you money at 0% for 15 months is because, more often than not, customers do not clear their debt and end up paying extortionate interest when the promotion period ends. This is the main way Virgin increases its customer base and claws back the cost of the promotion. If this worries you, consider a low rate or life-of-balance deal in conjunction with Egg Money rather than Virgin (see #782 below).

Also, as you've said, you'll need to factor in the uncapped 3% balance transfer fees and check the loan Ts & C's. Cahoot may charge an early repayment penalty if the loan is settled in full before the scheduled date.