Virgin / MBNA deceipt!

johnthetour

My recent Virgin CC offered me interest free spending in two areas.
The first up to £250 spent before 31st March Interest free to July Statement.
The second for spends over £250.01 interest free until October Statement.
When asking for some explanation as to where my minimum payments were allocated to ensure I paid off the right amounts at the right time to make sure I paid no interest, I was told that all payments would be taken off the 'Over £250' spends first!!! therefore trapping all my 'up to £250' spend to interest payments between July and October!!
This, the operator told me was 'not clear' in the paperwork.
This is very close to imoral if not illegal.
Please be warned that you will need to pay off everything by July statement date, therefore rendering the offer very questionable.

I sugest everyone with a Virgin Card checks this out.

Johnthetour

SCO

never had this kind of offer from them. sounds weird, normally they just offer BT's to me.

fozmcfc

The order of payments when both offers are at the same interest rate goes to the offer which starts first. So if say the 0% until July starts back in January and the 0% until October starts in February, then payments will go to one finishing in July first.

When the problem exist, seems to be if both offers are the same rate and start on the same date, then it appears the payments go to the offer finishing last. To me yes that is sneaky of them to do that.

However, after the July statments when the interest free stops on the upto £250 purchases, they will be paid off first though as they attract the highest interest rate.

You can avoid paying loads of interest by making sure you have the amount to pay off all the upto £250 purchases as soon as the statement is produced, then have another couple of months to pay off the over £250 purchases until October.

thenudeone

It is definitely sneaky (i.e. morally questionable) because the terms do not say which balance would be paid off in these circumstances. All mbna cards (including play.com, amazon etc) are the same in this respect.
It's worth complaining about, but because the terms are unclear and they haven't broken them, I'm not sure how far you would get. You might get a small goodwill gesture. or nothing.
The only way to avoid it would be to wait til 1 day after the first offer ends then pay off that balance. You will pay a little interest but the payments will definitely go towards the higher rate balance.

oki25

Just ask the rep what day the short offer ends, pay the day after!

Rupert_Bear

I took advantage of a promo rate for purchases last August. I bought an item worth £539.00 and to avoid interest had to be repaid by the March 2011 statement.
I also had a BT taken out in January 2011 and the debt had to be repaid by September 2011. I also have just taken out another promo rate offer for £1151 and to be paid back in December 2011.

Now bearing in mind the £539.00 is the first to attract interest, I contacted MBNA and ask them how much do I need to pay off now to avoid interest. They sent a message advising the min payments of £25.00 I had been making reduce
that balance first. So if I wanted I only need pay them £379.00.

However to keep things clear for me I will pay off the £539.00.

I like the idea with MBNA you can have purchases and bt and promo purchases all on the one card and if ever unsure about certain things I always send them a secure message and then everything is documented.