0% Money Transfers and Purchase interest

dhardman99253

Hello,

Hope someone can try and clarify an interest issue i currently have on my Virgin Atlantic Amex/Visa account.

I have held my account for quite a while with all my balances being paid off in full everymonth. 4 months ago i was offered 0% balance/money transfers for 12 months. I decided to do a money transfer and pay off an £1800 overdraft i was paying interest on every month. Speaking with the advisor i was told that as long as i paid off the balance for my purchases every month i would attract no interest as the £1800 was at 0%. Great i thought, the plan was the pay off my purchase balance plus an extra £150 every month and pay no interest, with my total balance being clear in 12 months.

Started get charged interest after the first month, called them up and the advisor said it must be an error as he could see i was paying off my purchases plus i had 0% on the money transfer amount.

2 Months later i realised im getting charged even more interest and i speak to them today and they say that im getting charged interest as im not clearing the full balance off every month, regardless of the fact that im paying off over what im spending on purchases. They say that unless the full balance (inc my money transfer) is paid off in full, 17.9% APR starts the day i make the purchase. This has never happened on previous credit cards i have owned? And if i had known this i would have either used my other credit card for purchases or not done the money transfer.

I have requested a call back from a manager who i think will confirm what the previous paragraph states regarding interest (after looking at the T&C's). If this is right, where do i stand as i have essentially been misold this offer as i did ask the advisor about this very situation before processing the transfer. Plus when i phoned back the first time the advisor agreed with me and refunded the interest.

Thanks in advance,

Dan

thenudeone

Purchases are only interest free if you pay always off the full statement balance (not just the purchases) every month.

If you don't pay off the full balance, purchases will be charged interest from the date of the transaction until paid off in full.

This rule is pretty universally applied across all credit cards.

If you were told otherwise, you've been informed wrongly. The best you can expect now that you know the facts is to be given another few weeks interest free, until you pay the current purchase balance off. I doubt they will extend it any further because it would require a manual intervention every month.

Ben8282

First of all, if you have a 0% balance transfer you will always pay interest on purchases from the transaction date to the date of repayment of the purchase, whatever you may have been told. The reason being quite simply that the entire balance is not being paid in full.

Reading your OP, what happened to you is very similar to what happened to me. Lloyds/TSB offered me a 'super balance transfer' into my current account, as it happens also about 4 months ago. Like you, I accepted it with the intention of repaying an overdraft.

During the conversation, I asked about interest on purchases and was clearly told that if I continued to make full payment of the new purchase transactions every month, I would not be charged interest. Not believing her, I acted dumb and made her repeat what she was saying multiple times to ensure I was understanding correctly. There was no misunderstanding.

Obviously, I have been charged purchase interest. I have chosen not to complain for my own reasons, but I can certainly confirm that credit card company staff are misleading customers about this.