Mint Cheques, all a bit confusing..

chris_v_2

Mint's website claims (link Mint card summary ), and I quote:

"Cheques 0% for 7 months from account opening".

And it makes no mention of a fee for actually using a cheque. I phoned Mint to check this and the sales person seemed to agree with this assertion..

Yet now I have the credit agreement, the T&Cs state there is not just a fee but interest, on cheques used before 31/3/05. Quote:

"'Transfer and Save' and cheque transactions where agreement made on or before 31/3/05 - Monthly charge 1.019%"
and
"For each 'Transfer and Save' and cheque transaction debut on or before 31/3/05 we will charge 2% ..." (I'm not actually sure what a "transfer and save" is, and can't find an exact definition)

Surely there's some mis-selling going on here, as the claimed 7 month interest free period in reality appears to be 5 months (as the interest free rate ends 2/9/05), and there was intially no mention of cheque related fees at all. Can anyone clarify this?

(I should add the Mint T&Cs in the credit agreement are very hard to decode, with lots and lots of caveats!)

Reaper

chris_v wrote:

it makes no mention of a fee for actually using a cheque.

Yes it does, look under "Charges" in that summary box. It says:

For each balance transfer made during the first 3 months from account opening, 2% of the amount transferred (minimum £5, maximum £40).

It also says it on the main credit card page.

As for the monthly % that is the amount you will be charged outside the 7 month period. As I read it there will be no interest payable during the 7 months.

chris_v_2

Well I'm not sure about that, Reaper, because "balance transfer" and "cheque" are different things .. their web page clearly differentiates between them, having two entries:

Cheques - 0% for 7 months from account opening
Balance Transfers - 0% for 7 months from account opening

The charges section later only mentions the "Balance Transfers" bit, not the cheques. Unless it's somehow implicit that cheque = BT?? But I don't see that - as I can use the cheque for purchases, not just paying off CCs

Reaper

I think I'd better leave it to someone else to give you a definitive answer as I have never owned a Mint card. I suspect that the way you do a balance transfer might be to write a cheque, so they are one and the same. Hopefully somebody can say if that's right.

chris_v_2

Just to close this one off.. I contacted Mint (should have done this before posting really, soz).

They say the credit agreement's posted out are out-of-date/default, and dont take into account current online offers. I've been told that once the account is opened I'll receive updated info, that should confirm that there is a 7 mth interest free period + no fee on Mint cheques.

colinw

But will the cheques not be charged as a BT. Seems strange to charge for a BT but not for Cheques.

chris_v_2

I made it very clear on the phone, to Mint new accounts, that I wanted to pay the cheque into a bank account, and asked if that would be interest free AND fee free.. the answer was yes.

This seems to echo what Martin has said in his credit card related articles. But we'll see when I get the card and final t&cs!

Milarky

colinw wrote:

But will the cheques not be charged as a BT. Seems strange to charge for a BT but not for Cheques.

I was under the impression that BTs were fee free after 31/03/05 - is that right?

Cheques can be used for purchases too, of course, but should not be so because section 75 protection [and maybe other bits added by particular issuers of cards] doesn't apply to non-card transactions. Section 75 allows for recovery of money paid on non-receipt of goods over £100 from the card issuer - by refund I suppose. [remember Courts?]

I was also under the impression that MINT cheques are generally fee-fee [i.e. not just during promotional periods] This could now be different again, but I don't think so! Anyway, it was the case that cheques would attract interest 'from day one' - another reason for not using them - and that where interest is charged on MINT a minimum of 50p applies anyway. This meant you could write a cheque for charge of 50p+ in practice, provided the amount drawn/period before settlement was minimal. MINT can thus act as a 'SBT' card, I understand. As a method of drawing cash from MINT it is superior at least to their 'Money Transfer' which charges £5.50+ [2% of £250 minimum fee plus 50p minimum interest] for essentially the same thing!

colinw

But online in terms and conditions it states:

†For each ‘Transfer and Save’ and cheque transaction debited during the first 3 months from account opening we will charge you 2% of the transferred amount [Minimum charge is £5, maximum £40].

Also they will only advance 50% of your credit limit which is a bit of a bummer.

Walletwatch

All

To me, this is another anti-stoozing measure in a way - sock the charges if the BT is done in the first three months, else make the BT fee-free. This would simply mean that one should compare the interest earned in a high int savings account till March 31st with the fees on the BT amount. If the fees are higher (which I suspect it would), initiate the BT after 31-Mar, else do it right away.

This is Mint's way of penalising stoozers who are in it only for the 0% offer only - a middle-of-the-road measure between egg (who don't charge anything), and MBNA, which charges 2% irrespective for SBTs.

Nigel1

A word of warning about Mint - these are the credit cards with the corner missing aren't they?
I've heard that most machines that take credit cards look for all four corners to be intact. If they are not there, the machine keeps the card - in some cases jamming it up.
So it might be a nice little ploy dreamt up by some marketing "fluffy", but it sounds impractical. Has anyone else heard this?