CITI/OPUS – can they do this

InDeepDebt

Morning all, not been on for a while – just been plodding on [slowly] getting my card balances down with the help that I received off this forum previously.

Anyhow, I have a question about CITI. My wife had a CITI credit card with about £1400 balance. In the grand scheme of things, this is a small balance. About 18 months ago, we negotiated with CITI to get the interest frozen and made reduced payments as we were/are in financial difficulty. Must have been having a bad day as, going on a pro-rata basis, we should be paying £7 (0.5%) but we agreed £24 – I think that I just could be bothered arguing any more and they said that if we paid £24 a month then that would be it until the balance was cleared.

A few months ago, maybe 9 or 12, we got a letter advising that OPUS were taking over the credit card. We’ve had to change the sort code and account number that we make the payments to – I believe that OPUS are owned by RBS.

Last month, we received a letter off OPUS advising that they are going to start charging interest on the account. This would be charged at something like 6.49% p.a. – so just over 0.5% a month and would be applied from 25 July. The balance of the account is now down to £900 – based on that I get the interest to be about £4.50. Got the statement this month and the interest added is £10 and so many pennies.

OK, onto my question(s).

Are they allowed to do this? Unfortunately it was only a verbal agreement where we agreed to make the payment and they would stop interest – I’ll see if I can find any written correspondence but I can’t remember getting any confirming the conversation.

Who are OPUS in relation to CITI? Is there no such thing as a CITI credit card now and every CITI cardholder is now an OPUS cardholder or did we get moved because we were in arrears? In other words, did CITI sell on the debt?

I am tempted to send them my statement of affairs showing them that we should only be paying about 0.5% of the balance as that is what we pay our other creditors. However, if there is some legal backing that I have then that would be good. I am not disputing that we are in debt to CITI (or whoever) but just want to ensure that as much of my contribution to our massive debt (about £69k unsecured) is not eaten up with interest.

Cheers

Jim

Apologies for the long post.

fermi

Not checked who Opus are, but they are only allowed to start charging interest again according to the terms of the original card agreement + any varied terms that CITI may have issued during the life of the card.

Is it Opus or Opos?

InDeepDebt

Thanks for the reply. Definitely Opus.

Just found this on the CITI website

http://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/cards/?merchant=citi

As well as this on here

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2794994

At work at the moment so don’t have time to trawl through the above thread. Will do so when I get home this evening though.

Cheers

Jim

InDeepDebt

Had a good old search around but was unable to find anything else about this - can't find where anyone has had the interest re-applied after the changeover from CITI to OPUS - allbeit at a low rate.

My plan is to write to them and basically grovel. Advise them how much I am in debt overall and that CITI agreed to suspend all interest until the balance was paid off (won't initially tell them that that was a verbal arrangement with no backup in writing).

Anyone got any better ideas?

I also can't see how it can be legal. CITI could have, for example, passed the balance onto LoanSharksRUs who charge 150% p.a. - what would be the comeback then?

Jim

[EDIT]

Just found someone else having EXACTLY the same problem as me

http://www.moon25.com/debt-settlement/1250187-citi-opus-can-they-do-this.html

mighty strange :rotfl:

[/EDIT]