Help!!! Big mistake on credit card

guidarufino

I'm a credit card tart and proud. Well, I've been steadily paying off ridiculous credit card debts accumulated when I was young and foolish for years now. I've been doing really well and am down to about £6k and one card, interest free naturally.

Being the good money saver that I am, I don't just pay the minimum amount, instead having a standing order set up so that I pay the same every month. This has always worked well.

Until now. Having not checked my credit card statement for a while (I know this was stupid but as I knew the money was leaving my account I thought it was ok) I have just realised that November's payment was received ONE DAY LATE! So they've taken me off the promotional rate and so far I've racked up about £180 in interest!!! :mad:

I've spoken to them and made the minimum payment to keep them happy for now. I begged and pleaded, pointed out I'd been a customer for ages, it was an honest mistake, it's their fault for not allowing me to have a set amount on DD, I will take my business elsewhere etc etc (all very politely of course) but they have refused to rescind the interest charges and have only been able to put me back down to 9.9%. I told him if they did that I would take my business elsewhere and I thought they were being totally unreasonable. I'm not even sure if there's been late payment charges yet as I can't get online to look at the statement as their stupid server's down. It's MBNA btw.

So I took the address for complaints and I'm going to write a complaint and move my balance elsewhere. But obviously I'm desperate to get the interest and charges (if there are any) taken off. It's ridiculous, the payment was received ONE DAY LATE, it's totally unreasonable. I appreciate it was probably just an automated system but still...

So has anyone got any advice or hints, has anyone been through anything similar and got a good result? Thanks

Gromitt

Unfortunately, I say you have and still doing everything you can. The complaint team is your last resort.

In the eyes of the T&Cs, 1 day late is enough, regardless of how unreasonable we feel it is.

I do have an MBNA card, but I have two payments set up:
A Direct Debit for the minimum payment,
Plus a Standing Order for an additional payment (setup for way outside the statement period)

The idea being that the DD ensures the payment is never late (as calculating all bank holidays and statement periods is a nightmare with SOs) and the second pays off the balance a chunk at a time and I can change the amount as and when.

creditcardhelp11

You should have set up a min payment dd and then a standing order for x amount every 2 weeks. You are lucky that you only missed one payment. As it was your fault they have every right to remove your 0% rate and you should not complain about it.

Tixy

Sometimes people have managed to get their 0% re-instated. If they phone up the follwing month, apologise, grovel and agree to set up a direct debit in future. This doesn't always work but often does.

However reports on here suggest if you start threatening them and blaming them rather than totally accepting it was your fault they tend to stick to the letter of the T&Cs and no reinstate the deal.

guidarufino

Well this has been a very expensive lesson.

£24 in charges
£189.53 in interest

:mad:

Clearly the lesson is to have a DD for the min amount plus a set amount. Which I don't recall ever reading about anywhere but it does seem obvious now, but then again everything does in hindsight doesn't it?!

I haven't threatened them or blamed them at all. But I did point out that it was a honest mistake on my part, I have NEVER missed a payment with them before (and I've had many cards with them over the years) and have a really good credit record. Clearly this was an honest mistake on my part and for them to charge me £200+ for being ONE DAY late is not reasonable. Clearly I'm not going to carry on giving my business to a bank that isn't prepared to be a bit flexible when a good customer makes an honest mistake.

The 0% was due to expire in May anyway so I'm going to apply for a new card now and transfer the lot. I'll write to them anyway and say I think they've behaved unreasonably and will ask them to reinstate the charges and interest. It's worth a try. I can't afford to wait and see if they do give me the 0% rate back again as it's racking up interest at an outrageous rate in the meantime.

Thanks for the supportive message cc11 by the way.

dzug1

Whilst you may be unhappy about this - and understandably so - you'll be hard put to find another provider who would not treat you exactly the same in the same circumstances. So please don't make the same mistake again - you can't afford to.

If you've had a string of low/no interest deals your current provider may not want to keep you and regards this as a golden opportunity to make some money from you before you stomp off elsewhere.

guidarufino

Of course, I have learned my lesson on this one. I always say it's only a mistake if you keep on making it. I'm just trying to cut down the cost of this particular lesson! I've written a very grovelly letter so fingers crossed. And I've applied for another card in the meantime, might as well since the 0% thing's up in 4 months anyway and I very much doubt that they'll put me back on the promotional rate.

ha ha, you're probably right but in fairness I did pay a BT fee up front so it's not like they haven't made any money off me.

Incidentally I think the fact that they don't allow you to set up a DD for a set amount is really cynical and clearly they do it in the hopes that precisely this sort of thing will happen. There's no earthly reason for them to only allow you to have the DD on the minimum or full balance other than maximising their profits.

CLAPTON

guidarufino wrote: »

Of course, I have learned my lesson on this one. I always say it's only a mistake if you keep on making it. I'm just trying to cut down the cost of this particular lesson! I've written a very grovelly letter so fingers crossed. And I've applied for another card in the meantime, might as well since the 0% thing's up in 4 months anyway and I very much doubt that they'll put me back on the promotional rate.

ha ha, you're probably right but in fairness I did pay a BT fee up front so it's not like they haven't made any money off me.

Incidentally I think the fact that they don't allow you to set up a DD for a set amount is really cynical and clearly they do it in the hopes that precisely this sort of thing will happen. There's no earthly reason for them to only allow you to have the DD on the minimum or full balance other than maximising their profits.

just out of interest, if they allowed a fixed DD and one particular month the fixed DD was less than the minimum payment (hence incurring charges etc), would be being writing to say they only allow that to maximise profits?

guidarufino

Of course not but I don't really see how that would ever happen. As per Martin's advice, I never spend on these cards, or any credit cards now actually. I do the balance transfer, set up the standing order, set myself a reminder for 12/18 etc months' time and don't worry about it other than checking it on it every 2-3 months or so. So once I've set up a set amount, it will always be enough.

What really annoys me is that I am super organised about all this stuff. I even have a spreadsheet for god's sake! It's not like I'm some silly irresponsible flake who's forgotten about it.

Do you have another explanation as to why they don't allow you to have a fixed amount on your DD?

bengal-stripe

Tixy wrote: »

......phone up the follwing month, apologise, grovel and agree to set up a direct debit in future.

Obviously the OP did not want to apologize or grovel.

guidarufino wrote: »

I begged and pleaded, pointed out I'd been a customer for ages, it was an honest mistake, it's their fault for not allowing me to have a set amount on DD, I will take my business elsewhere etc etc (all very politely of course)(

guidarufino wrote: »

......I haven't threatened them or blamed them at all.

What do you think that is? - it's their fault...... I will take my business elsewhere etc......

That is blaming, that is threatening (all very politely of course). Where is the apology, where is the grovelling? In such a situation, "all guns blazing" is not a very clever attitude to take.

JasX

guidarufino wrote: »

Of course not but I don't really see how that would ever happen.

Tends to happen more around this time of year and the december payment..... especially with so many bank holidays in close succession.... DD for the minimum PLUS standing order is definitely the way to go.

guidarufino wrote: »

Do you have another explanation as to why they don't allow you to have a fixed amount on your DD?

i think there is usually more flexability there than they're willing to admit..... I think I recall a case where the relevant DD option wasn;t on the forum and was denied by phone but if you filled in the DD form and wrote in the amount they'd set it up for you.