Virgin CC late payment on big balance

arichardsnova2k

Hi Folks,
First post for me, you could say I am a virgin to the forum.
However the reality is not so funny. I took out a virgin card with a £9K balance transfer at 0% for 16 months. Great deal as I was investing the money to get a decent return but last month I was 5 days late on the min payment ( a stupid oversight I know). Latest statement slaps a penalty of £12 which I can live with and £122 interest. Next month interest will be £149!
Contacted Virgin and admitted I had been a burke for missing the payment date but they will only reduce the interest from 20%+ to 9.9%.
I know its a long shot but anyone any creative solutions to get Virgin to be more reasonable?
Thanks in advance Alan

_Andy_

In what way are they not being reasonable?

opinions4u

You broke the T&Cs. I think 9.9% is remarkably generous of them.

Have you heard of direct debits?

arichardsnova2k

Thanks for your replies. I am aware that I broke the T&Cs and yes I have heard of DDs, but 5 days late costs a fortune!! Come on guys can't you experienced forumites be a bit more creative?

BadgerFace_2

Seeing as you haven't spent the money and it is 'invested', why not just give it back to them? They'll give you another 0% deal before too long, then you can start again.

Tixy

Virgin have been known to re-instate 0% periods where people have missed the first payment and phone up and [STRIKE]grovel[/STRIKE] ask nicely. They seem generally less keen to do this if its not the first payment (and not suprisingly if the customer is rude to them!).

You could try asking again but if not then the deal they have given you is not bad (better than some manage to get from them). You'd then need to weigh up if it was worth trying to get another balance transfer card and pay another BT fee, or if it would be cheaper to just focus on repaying this as quickly as you can.

arichardsnova2k

Thanks for the replies.
The invested money is on a fixed term & so no access for a few months, but the profit I can withdraw and send to virgin which I have done already.
I tried to grovel and even managed not to be rude to the "computer says no" virgin robot but I think 9.9% was the limit to her discretion.
Asked to speak to manager/supervisor but promised call back never happened...
Will try one more time and then transfer balance from another card if no joy.

CLAPTON

assuming you are paying a BT fee of around 3% how do you make any worthwhile money on the stoozing?

YorkshireBoy

arichardsnova2k wrote: »

...I think 9.9% was the limit to her discretion.

You may find the customer retentions team have slightly more "discretion". Try them on 0800 783 1116 during office hours. Asking to set up a direct debit will help your cause.

NickX

Even at 9.9% you are going to make a rather nasty loss on your stoozing activities from this mistake.

Good call by YorkshireBoy to try retentions. If you don't get the required result, I would be tempted to phone again to try and get a more sympathetic operator.

Otherwise how about Balance Transferring elsewhere? If you have any other cards, try them for promotional rates to get the debt moved over. Otherwise I would be applying for a new 0% card right now to minimize the period on which you are paying interest.

Your fixed interest investments may have some get out clauses, but you will need to do some maths to work out the route which minimizes your losses.

All in all, an expensive mistake, but we are all human and mistakes do happen. Hope you get is sorted and have a nice Christmas

NickX

CLAPTON wrote: »

assuming you are paying a BT fee of around 3% how do you make any worthwhile money on the stoozing?

It is possible to get a return of quite a bit more than 3% with completely secure investments. If the OP has invested in fixed interest bonds, then I suspect they would have made a profit if they hadn't made this mistake.