can someone tell me what purchase interest is

sitcom321

i am being charged about £7 a month purchase interest is I havent used my card for about 2 years as i am trying to clear it, i have got it down from £1000 to £200 but get charged this purchase charge plus a cash interest charge

electrobix99

It is the APR applied to items bought in shops ect. The Cash interest is the APR charged when you either took money out a cash machine on the card or bought something that qualified as cash (online betting for instance)

opinions4u

At some point in the past you purchased things on your credit card. This is interest on the money you borrowed to purchase these things.

HappyMJ

You should if you can just pay it off in full, as you have just used your salary to pay it off you won't have money so use it again to make purchases with and every month use your salary to pay it off in full. Doing it that way you will not be charged any interest.

sitcom321

i cant afford to pay it off in full at the minute. I just thought £7 per month on £200 plus the cash interest seemed a lot considering I havent bought anything in over 2 years.

georgebrosnan

thats credit cards for you

sitcom321

georgebrosnan wrote: »

thats credit cards for you

yes exactly, hopefully this will be paid off by December and I can then get to work on my other one

bargainbetty

You get charged interest on your outstanding balance, regardless of when you spent it. If you spent it two years ago, they won't suddenly decide you've paid enough interest and stop charging it.

Check your interest rate - it you have no intention of ever using the card again, you could ask for it to be closed, so you don't get any more rate increases.

Tixy

sitcom321 wrote: »

i cant afford to pay it off in full at the minute. I just thought £7 per month on £200 plus the cash interest seemed a lot considering I havent bought anything in over 2 years.

Certainly sounds like a high interest /subprime credit card.
You need to check what the APRs are for both purchases and cash advances on the card.
Do you have any other form of credit? other open credit cards or overdraft that have cheaper APRs than this?

sitcom321

I am not sure to be honest, I will check apr etc and see what it is, I do have a virgin credit card which I am about to clear once this has finished but I think that is even higher interest!

Tixy

What card is this one?

If the total interest was £7 a month on a £200 balance you would be looking at roughly 45% APR. Seems unlikely that virgin would be anything like as high as that.