Credit card to buy car!?

ianfao

Kenp wrote: »

Anybody else been caught by this 'scam' ?
I have a 0% deal with MBNA, which expires in Oct.Unfortunately missed a monthly payment, and was charged £12 late fee PLUS and interest fee on the whole amount, which came up to £52.
THUS my forgetfulness has cost me £64, which I think is far too much.
Anything I can do about this ? apart from pay my bills on time !!

If you are regular with your payments I would give them a call and plead your case.

Purely out of curiosity though and because I have seen this mentioned on here so may times, why don't you have a direct debit set up for the minimum payment to be taken each month? I do not wish this to sound rude and as I said I am merely curious.

Stonk

Kenp wrote: »

Anybody else been caught by this 'scam' ?
I have a 0% deal with MBNA, which expires in Oct.Unfortunately missed a monthly payment, and was charged £12 late fee PLUS and interest fee on the whole amount, which came up to £52.
THUS my forgetfulness has cost me £64, which I think is far too much.
Anything I can do about this ? apart from pay my bills on time !!

Why is it a 'scam' when you break your side of the legal contract and they consequently apply the measures of which you have been notified and accepted?

As you say, what you can do is to pay your bills on time, as you originally agreed to do in the legally binding document you signed!

sausagefans

angelc5 wrote: »

Thanks guys! think I need to start saving and paying back while the card is still 0% interest on purchases til 2008......now I need to do my sums.....:eek:

I think there is an Amex card which gives 3% back on purchases, you can get one of those via quidco and get a bit back too. Then even if the dealer charges 2-3% more for a CC you will get this back - you can then transfer the balance or whatever you have in mind.

My own feeling in this situation would be to buy a "banger" with a couple of the months worth of money you can save (£400 say) and live with that until you can afford the new beast without borrowing.

Insurance is often much cheaper via quidco.com too. For example my brother in law who is a young driver had got £500 comp, I found him £370 comp with £125 cashback from pru. The cashback takes up to three months.

Hope this all makes sense.

angelc5

wwww sounds interesting sausagefans! will look into it...we already had a banger, and it was cosing us more than it's worth, one day it decided to cut out and the steering locked while we were mid way turning - so that was the last straw...we had planned on saving but this was unexpected - and this last week we realised with our jobs etc that we can't live without a car.

Now we can't decided whether or not to fix it up and sell it privately....or fix it up and have two cars for a few months (this would double the cost of everything I'm sure!)....so much to think about!!!!

sausagefans

angelc5 wrote: »

wwww sounds interesting sausagefans! will look into it...we already had a banger, and it was cosing us more than it's worth, one day it decided to cut out and the steering locked while we were mid way turning - so that was the last straw...we had planned on saving but this was unexpected - and this last week we realised with our jobs etc that we can't live without a car.

Now we can't decided whether or not to fix it up and sell it privately....or fix it up and have two cars for a few months (this would double the cost of everything I'm sure!)....so much to think about!!!!

I would be tempted to buy another banger when my current banger dies a death but then I'm possibly over careful with my cash (tight!!!) - one day I hope to buy new in cash!

S

mdf14

I would say go for the car now rather than save up - if you have money saved up, there are better things to spend it on then a car (which depreciates in value all the time) i.e. a house (which should hopefully increase), or simply leave it in savings.

I'd check out the credit card charge, which is likely to be at least 2.5% from my experience, then weigh this cost up against the interest on the cheapest loan available (there is a section on this on this site). If in a year's time there are no 0% CC's around you could always take a loan out then to repay it.

anniecave

an option is not necessarily to go for a "banger" but avoid buying anything that will depreciate lots. For example I bought my current car at 5 years old (low mileage) and 4 years on it's still going strong.

Buying an an older car may mean you have to spend more on repairs and servicing, but it's way cheaper than buying newer cars and losing £1000s on depreciation each year.

Backbiter

I did exactly what the OP proposes 3 and a half years ago. Bought a brand new Mazda for 10k from a main dealer (excellent customer service) and paid the lot on 3 credit cards while I shopped around for the best loan deal.
Eventually decided that 'tarting' was the best way to save money and succcessfully BT'd the balance between various cards, taking advantage of the Egg 0% anniversary offer on a couple of occasions while applying for various 0% deals.
I don't know what damage I've done to my credit rating by shuffling between cards and racking up a ridculous amount in combined credit limits, but I've saved around £600 a year in interest so I'm happy.
I have to say I've got tired of the whole process and the fact is you don't pay it off as quickly as you would with a 'proper' loan, as repayments are pretty low. Nothing to stop you being more disciplined than me and paying off more, but I've been weak and gone with the minimum too often. The other major problem is the almost universal introduction of BT fees - I've avoided them by following links on the site, but fee free cards are very scarce these days.

sausagefans

anniecave wrote: »

an option is not necessarily to go for a "banger" but avoid buying anything that will depreciate lots. For example I bought my current car at 5 years old (low mileage) and 4 years on it's still going strong.

Buying an an older car may mean you have to spend more on repairs and servicing, but it's way cheaper than buying newer cars and losing £1000s on depreciation each year.

Sorry by "banger" I didn't mean something totally "bangery" :-)

I meant something old enough to be cheap but new enough to be reliable!

I was lucky enough to buy (fairly cheaply) a hand me down from my Dad!