What a rip off! First Direct

penrhyn

Sorry if I'm being thick, but how do you get a £12K credit balance on a credit card?

Any

penrhyn wrote: »

Sorry if I'm being thick, but how do you get a £12K credit balance on a credit card?

By breaching credit cards T&C and put your credit card into credit..

Surprised that First Direct didn't plonk it straight back to where it came from.. which is what they are fully entitled to do.

And it could flag your account on money laundering...

izools

His FD card probably had a £0 balance and he did a balance transfer from an MBNA card for £12K, which put his MBNA card in debt by £12K and his FD card in credit by £12K.

I'm honestly incredibly surprised First Direct didn't just return the money to MBNA and close the credit card or freeze the account pending money laundering investigations. A severe breach of their terms to put it in credit by that amount.

EDIT: Any beat me to the post button!

izools

Fine, an unfair or disproportionate fee like £40 a day for three days because you went overdrawn by 68p buying a can of coke, fine. Absolutely agree, unfair. Natwest subject me to this when I was 17, I refused to pay due to my age, and they defaulted the account. Served a default notice on a minor. They got a rollocking from the FSA / FOS, I can tell you that much!

Purposefully breaching the terms and conditions of your credit card account and being charged a comparatively small fee, which you already agreed to when you took out the card, for the privelage of the bank not freezing the account and not launching a money laundering investigation, I think is pretty good.

You've misjudged the situation. That's cool, we're all human, and we all do it from time to time.

Just take it on the chin and use it as a learning experience to be more careful when processing transactions of a similar nature in future :beer:

izools

Had they advised of the fees involved? Had you asked? Is the fee dissimilar to what was (if it was) catagorically stated to you by the bank?

danothy

sablade wrote: »

1. I know
2. The OFT looked into overdraft fees. Martin Lewis wanted to stop unfair fees. The Banks won. People pay od fees and complain after.
3. MBNA did not offer this to me after lengthy discussions.

I don't pay overdraft fees because I know how much they are and I avoid them because of that, and if I do start to do so in the future I won't complain after because I know what they will be.

Any

sablade wrote: »

They would not do a money transfer.

I cannot believe it.
And if this is info you were really given and you can prove it then your grievance might possibly be with Virgin, as everyone else is able to do Money transfer and I would question why you cannot (unless it was special agreement..)

However you broke several rules with putting your card into credit etc, reason why these rules are there are money laundry regulations and I feel that FD went into extra lenghts to help you solve your problem - ie allowing you to do this.

dzug1

Any wrote: »

I cannot believe it.
And if this is info you were really given and you can prove it then your grievance might possibly be with Virgin, as everyone else is able to do Money transfer and I would question why you cannot (unless it was special agreement..)

However you broke several rules with putting your card into credit etc, reason why these rules are there are money laundry regulations and I feel that FD went into extra lenghts to help you solve your problem - ie allowing you to do this.

I think the problem is the desired transfer was from one MBNA card to another (Virgin is MBNA) - you can't normally do a money transfer between two cards belonging to the same bank, understandably enough. Effectively OP has been caught out trying to buck the system.

izools

Ah sorry when Any says "Money Transfer" he means from MBNA to current account. This is typically available with all MBNA cards for a 4% fee. The current account balance could then be used to clear the other MBNA card without incurring an additional fee.

How long until OP comes back complaining about trailing interest I wonder?

Any

dzug1 wrote: »

I think the problem is the desired transfer was from one MBNA card to another (Virgin is MBNA) - you can't normally do a money transfer between two cards belonging to the same bank, understandably enough. Effectively OP has been caught out trying to buck the system.

No, card to card is called balance transfer.
Card to current account is called money transfer.
Different terms - different transactions.

However, that pointed us why the OP was refused to transfer cash to bank account.. if he kept telling them he wants Balance Transfer to a bank account they wouldn't do it. But surely they would have told him that he actually wants Money Transfer if he wants to do that?

Or maybe they did and instead on reading up what it means the OP just said no...