Citi card to Opus: Will existing Life of Balance transfer be honoured?

Seb07

Hi all,
Newbie here.

I recently received some communication from Citi Card saying that they had sold their CC business to Opus UK, and that from 21st Nov my account would transfer to them.

Trouble is, the only reason I have a Citi card (which I took out 2 years ago) was due to an offer at that time of a fixed rate of interest for the life of any balance transfer. That rate was 4.95%. (before the crunch!)

Anyway, I have no other balance on the card and do not use it for any purpose other than to pay off what I had orginally transfered to it. Subsequently, I received a furtehr letter yesterday from Citi introducing my Opus account terms and conditions, and whilst there is comment about the rates they intend to charge contained within, it is not clear if these will apply to my exisitng balance once it is switched to the Opus account.

Does anyone know what may happen here? Citi say they have been advised that there will be no change, however I am not confident. Shouldn't the new owner of the account honour a life of balance transfer at the rate it was transferred at until paid off?

Any thoughts anyone?

scott_lithgows

I,ve got £500+ on a 5.9% lob deal,I also found no mention of existing offers being honoured.
If the deal is not extended,the balance will be shifted and the card closed very quickly!

Rupert_Bear

Seb07 wrote: »

Hi all,
Newbie here.

I recently received some communication from Citi Card saying that they had sold their CC business to Opus UK, and that from 21st Nov my account would transfer to them.

Trouble is, the only reason I have a Citi card (which I took out 2 years ago) was due to an offer at that time of a fixed rate of interest for the life of any balance transfer. That rate was 4.95%. (before the crunch!)

Anyway, I have no other balance on the card and do not use it for any purpose other than to pay off what I had orginally transfered to it. Subsequently, I received a furtehr letter yesterday from Citi introducing my Opus account terms and conditions, and whilst there is comment about the rates they intend to charge contained within, it is not clear if these will apply to my exisitng balance once it is switched to the Opus account.

Does anyone know what may happen here? Citi say they have been advised that there will be no change, however I am not confident. Shouldn't the new owner of the account honour a life of balance transfer at the rate it was transferred at until paid off?

Any thoughts anyone?

I was notified today but will give up card as never used. Also the company they sold it to specialise in sub prime lending. No doubt the card will carry a high interest rate and be on par with Vanquis.

Just noticed the apr on purchases is 31.8%. They must be having a laugh.

System

Can you not do the usual cancel and keep the same rate thing or am I missing something?

The new company could withdraw the LOB offer for new transfers, but doing the above, would it not lock in the LOB (on existing balances) rate til paid off?

SeanyP321

same boat...

the very first notification I got months and months ago... said WE WILL KEEP SAME APR
:T

davidtaggart

Hi
I've just received the circular about the card changing to Opus. Standard apr is 34.4% but clause 3.2 also includes condition:-
"You make one purchase of £1200 immediately".

It's one thing having a 34.4 % APR but does the £1200 clause mean they can alter the interest rate if I don't comply.

I've just cleared most of the card's credit onto the RBS card talked about on this site but guess I'll have to transfer the rest of my Citi balance (yep, bulit up since the RBS transfer) & pay the interest - might be alot cheaper than 34.4% or more if I don't spend £1200.

To think that a few years ago I got a Shell credit card for the Air Miles - the Air Miles have gone, Shell points are useless and now 34.4%.

mssloan

davidtaggart wrote: »

Hi
I've just received the circular about the card changing to Opus. Standard apr is 34.4% but clause 3.2 also includes condition:-
"You make one purchase of £1200 immediately".

It's one thing having a 34.4 % APR but does the £1200 clause mean they can alter the interest rate if I don't comply.

The £1200 purchase is not a requirement, just a figure they use in order to calculate the APR figure.

I believe that if a Credit Card company changes the interest rate they charge, you have the right to 'close' the account and pay off the balance at the old rate. Feel free to jump in and correct me if I'm wrong!

mssloan

honeybun16

I would be really interested to know if we could do that * close the account and pay off at the same monthly rate. as We are in the same position, Citi have transferred us to Opus too. and reading through there is nothing that says they will honor the deal. Seems to me that Citi are just selling off any accounts which aren't making them loads or money in charges or interest

schoolrunmum

I'm curious to know if Citi have moved all their card holders to Opus,or just a select few?We have a Citi card that we used to use,but haven't for about 2 years and we have had the Opus transfer letter. I've written to them both to cancel both accounts anyway,just wondered thats all...

asto

I have received a similar letter from Citicards today and spoken with their customer services centre. Quite interesting what is going on. Opus doesn't have a customer service centre until 21 November. Citicards will not have an operative customer service centre from 21 November as they will have transferred all details held to Opus, so won't be allowed (apparently) to then deal with queries. This prevents any customer from comparing the information received from Opus and Citibank to protect their interests.

I have been told by two people at Citicards that they guarantee that as part of the deal to transfer the customers to Opus the life of balance low rate transfer on my account will be held. I presume this is the same for other customers, but would recommend you call them and obtain an oral guarantee. I asked for a line manager to confirm this as well, which was done.

I have explained that having received that guarantee, and in light of the original agreement to a promotional rate for the life of balance, as far as I am concerned I am entitled to sue the relevant Citibank company for any losses I suffer from the transfer to Opus. The customer services people unfortunately aren't well versed in their own corporate identity. Firstly they told me Citibank Limited was the company. When I explained that from looking at Companies House this company doesn't exist, I was advised it was Citicards Limited. This also doesn't exist. Eventually we reached agreement the relevant company is CitiFinancial Europe plc.

Initially I was told that this company would be closed on 21 November and cease to exist, but subsequently discovered this was also incorrect.

Apparently Citicards will no longer operate any credit cards from 21 November. Not all cards have been sold to Opus, some to another company. I was told this was a "random" decision by management. It surprises me that a decision could be random, and further why would management waste time engaging themselves with a random decision. I suspect a decision was taken of categories of customer and card, but got no further with this.

In short, I would recommend phoning Citicards and asking them to guarantee your promotional rate will remain on the transfer to Opus. Then when Opus start operating on 21 November call them and ask for confirmation of the same.

One final thing - be careful about payments on your November statement. The transfer is 21 November. I asked Citicards what would happen if I made a payment on 19 November which was only received on 22 November. They don't know. They suspect it would get lost and an investigation would have to begin. That would of course mean that Opus could potentially record a delayed/non-payment which would then see you lose your promotional transfer rate in any event.

best of luck.

Rupert_Bear

asto wrote: »

I have received a similar letter from Citicards today and spoken with their customer services centre. Quite interesting what is going on. Opus doesn't have a customer service centre until 21 November. Citicards will not have an operative customer service centre from 21 November as they will have transferred all details held to Opus, so won't be allowed (apparently) to then deal with queries. This prevents any customer from comparing the information received from Opus and Citibank to protect their interests.

I have been told by two people at Citicards that they guarantee that as part of the deal to transfer the customers to Opus the life of balance low rate transfer on my account will be held. I presume this is the same for other customers, but would recommend you call them and obtain an oral guarantee. I asked for a line manager to confirm this as well, which was done.

I have explained that having received that guarantee, and in light of the original agreement to a promotional rate for the life of balance, as far as I am concerned I am entitled to sue the relevant Citibank company for any losses I suffer from the transfer to Opus. The customer services people unfortunately aren't well versed in their own corporate identity. Firstly they told me Citibank Limited was the company. When I explained that from looking at Companies House this company doesn't exist, I was advised it was Citicards Limited. This also doesn't exist. Eventually we reached agreement the relevant company is CitiFinancial Europe plc.

Initially I was told that this company would be closed on 21 November and cease to exist, but subsequently discovered this was also incorrect.

Apparently Citicards will no longer operate any credit cards from 21 November. Not all cards have been sold to Opus, some to another company. I was told this was a "random" decision by management. It surprises me that a decision could be random, and further why would management waste time engaging themselves with a random decision. I suspect a decision was taken of categories of customer and card, but got no further with this.

In short, I would recommend phoning Citicards and asking them to guarantee your promotional rate will remain on the transfer to Opus. Then when Opus start operating on 21 November call them and ask for confirmation of the same.

One final thing - be careful about payments on your November statement. The transfer is 21 November. I asked Citicards what would happen if I made a payment on 19 November which was only received on 22 November. They don't know. They suspect it would get lost and an investigation would have to begin. That would of course mean that Opus could potentially record a delayed/non-payment which would then see you lose your promotional transfer rate in any event.

best of luck.

They do still own Egg and are trying to find a buyer for that credit card operation. It has been disclosed that one of the bidders is Barclays. If Egg does go to them I will be very pleased. At least I will not have to deal with a sub prime lender with an high APR.