MBNA credit cards

acmns

My MBNA card expired and they refuse ti issue a new one because "the business is up for sale and they are not issuing any new plastic". I have always made correct payments on time. My agreement is dated 6/2/1999.
Can they do this or can I insist on a new card being issued?

Tixy

Yes they can do this. They can close any credit account at any time should they so wish - its written in the terms & conditions.

thenudeone

Although the apparent ability of card providers to withdraw credit without notice and without reason is probably in breach of The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/2083/contents/made
because (IMO),

"contrary to the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations arising under the contract, to the detriment of the consumer."

I have a case with the Financial Ombudsman at the moment (13 months and counting...)

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

acmns wrote: »

My MBNA card expired and they refuse ti issue a new one because "the business is up for sale and they are not issuing any new plastic". I have always made correct payments on time. My agreement is dated 6/2/1999.
Can they do this or can I insist on a new card being issued?

The business may be up for sale but I can't see that this would be the reason for not sending a new card. If they did this for everyone they'd have no customer base to offer a potential bidder.

bengal-stripe

thenudeone wrote: »

Although the apparent ability of card providers to withdraw credit without notice and without reason is probably in breach of The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999

In this case, MBNA would not be withdrawing credit, but would not provide further credit in addition to the one already used. There is nothing 'unfair' about that.

My MBNA CC is due for renewal in 04/13.
Let's see what will happen to my account in a year's time.

chattychappy

thenudeone wrote: »

Although the apparent ability of card providers to withdraw credit without notice and without reason is probably in breach of The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/2083/contents/made
because (IMO),

"contrary to the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations arising under the contract, to the detriment of the consumer."

I have a case with the Financial Ombudsman at the moment (13 months and counting...)

In the OP's case they have given a reason - a business decision to get out of this business.

I'd be amazed if UTCCR is interpreted the way you suggest, but keep us posted, I'm interested!

Chris2000

Recent reports suggest BoA may not sell the business because they don't think anyone offered enough for it. Barclays and a private equity group were rumoured to be interested with Virgin exercising their right to buy their own cardholders.

MBNA have just increased my BT and cash withdrawal fee to 5% (min. £5) and the regular BT offers have dried up completely. It seems consistent with a strategy of milking what value they can get from existing customers. Any bidder will most likely be interested in the outstanding customer balances, not building a long-term business. It didn't take long for whoever bought the Citi credit card business a few years ago to close my account - and they didn't wait until my card expired.

My MBNA card was originally an Alliance & Leicester moneyback card from 1997. Only last October they added an Amex card to my account and increased cashback to 1%. I'd hope they honour accumulated cashback if/when do close an account otherwise that would be a UTCCR issue.

dduk

I posed a similar problem to this already, had a card which isn't due to expire for ages, but it developed a fault and the chip and RFID wouldn't work, tried to get them to send a replacement but they wouldn't do it for the same reasons. And this was back at the end of last year.

oscar52

Chris2000 wrote: »

Recent reports suggest BoA may not sell the business because they don't think anyone offered enough for it. Barclays and a private equity group were rumoured to be interested with Virgin exercising their right to buy their own cardholders.
.

MBNA Europe is no longer up for sale, but the reasons are not those above. Apparently they have suddenly become very profitable again (or so the information from above tells us)

Barclays were knocked back due to them already having a significant market share - they were told to sell businesses before they could make an offer.