Barclaycard Refuse to Suspend Interest

Bosniavet96

Hello

I have a DMP with CCCS, which I have had for nearly 3 years. There have no problems with this at all, & I would recommend them to anyone.

All my creditors, with the exception of Barclaycard, have suspended interest, & shown no intention of re-imposing it. Barclaycard continue to charge me interest at a "reduced rate" of 0.5% per month, meaning that for up to 3 months per year I am merely paying the interest on my debt, thus extending the life of this debt.

I have written to Barclaycard asking them to suspend interest charges, pointing out that all my other creditors have already done this, & also making mention of the increased administrative cost & length of time to repay caused by this. The reply I received was effectively "we don't care, we want to charge interest, & will continue to do so, regardless of the situation.", which is not very helpful to say the least.

After reading advice given on another thread here, I contacted the Financial Ombudsman Service & asked them to intervene on my behalf, which they did. Barclaycard merely wrote back & gave the same answer as before, pointing out that I did now have a further period of time to complain to the FOS.

Is it worth my while continuing with this? Are there any regulations/agreements or examples I should be quoting at Barclaycard? Has anyone else had a similar problem with Barclaycard.

The debt is about £3k on 2 cards, & I cannot make an offer of a lump sum payment, unless they would accept 10%, so I am stuck as you can see.

Thanks in advance

[Deleted User]

Didn't want to read and run. Seems that they can do this as you say, the FOS would be looking at what is fair, I think they can only make suggestions in this case.

eyeopener2

What exactly was the FOS response to you?

sickasachip13

Hi,

Sorry to hear of your woes.

We've this problem with one of our barclarcard debts - we have three. When we complained we were told that they never stop % completely, which is clearly a load of old b@lls as they have on the other two accounts. However, we didn't want to point this out in case they then started % on the other two. We're fortunate as this is one of our smallest debts now.

What did the FOS say?

SAAC

chanz4

It could be seen as fair, due to how much your intrest was and now is

hedgehog26

I have the same problem.

Barclaycard are continuing to charge me interest, despite numerous letters in the hope they will stop. -They haven't.

I will remember this if ever I get a credit card again, and I think it's good we are dscussing this on the forum.:)

Good luck!

Bosniavet96

Hello

Thanks for your replies.

The FOS listened to my tale of woe & contacted Barclaycard to state that I was not happy with their response, that is when I received the 2nd letter telling me that they will not suspend interest.

I find this strange as other forum members seem to have had their interest stopped by Barclaycard. Additionally, HSBC Online Card, MBNA (transferred to IDEM), HSBC (transferred to a DCA wholly owned by them), Lloyds TSB (transferred to APEX) & Capital One (now cleared by a partial payment) all suspended interest either immediately my DMP started, or after I contacted them once.

Given that Barclays have been fined by the US & UK authorities over their manipulation of interest rates etc, I would have thought they might be willing to suspend the interest in the hope of getting some brownie points.

bailiff_advise

So basically you are getting ripped off? Ok, why don't you stop paying them altogether then, what can they do their is no contract between you is there?

They are carrying on charging everyone interest as they want 290million back but they will get that back anyway with a few clicks of a keyboard, odd but true

bargainbetty

Sadly, Barclays don't have to stop the interest. They would claim they are being reasonable by reducing the interest, but, as a business, they have a right to continue applying some measure of interest to a credit facility that you took out with them - it isn't their fault that you have debt.

Baliff_advise is being a bit reckless - you do have a contract with them, and if you stop paying they can apply defaults (if they haven't already) and your DMP may also be invalidated. This might cause a large amount of problems.

Work on saving any spare money to throw at the debt. Even pennies might help reduce the capital. From what you say, nine months of the year you are repaying the capital debt, which is better than if they had retained the interest at full level. Throw the occasional spare fiver at it, each time with a note specifiying it is not a regular payment, and it will come down, just more slowly than you might like. Not everyone gets everything frozen - ask again every six months, but don't hold your breath. Just keep on plugging away at it.

Good luck, and I'm sorry that might not be what you want to hear.

geeka

I am on a debt management plan wit CCCS and 1 of my 3 creditors is Barclaycard and they have reduced interest but not stopped it. Ive tried numerous times through CCCS and via letters and its just a no go. My situation is ok as they are the smallest debt so its going. I dont think there is anything you can do with them they are a pain in the you know what. My other 2 creditors have stopped interest, 2 out of 3 aint bad. Just dont ever use Barclaycard again!

antonic

I am coming to the end of my DMP and during the time of my DMP a credit card creditor of mine froze the interest, then unfroze it resulting in interest being added, and then froze the interest again.

My take on the situation is that I owe the interest and will pay it, because after all they have given me a loan for the last few years.