Morgan Stanley £20 Annual Fee

melbury

humfer wrote: »

I assure you you are not alone. Both myself and my wife applied for the platinum cards and there was no correspondence from MS to say we had failed. The cards that we received are black and look exactly like the platinum card (although under closer inspection notice 'platinum' is not written on the card). It was only when we phoned up on monday night to ask about the £20 fee were we both told we had the normal card. They couldn't tell us why we had failed with the platinum card or what the criteria was to get it

I am so annoyed about this that I have just telephoned MS again to try and find out why they gave me a Classic card when I had applied for a Platinum.

The answer I got is that their underwriting team decide what your credit limit will be based on your application and the card you get is determined by that credit limit. If it is under £3000 then you get a Classic card, if it is over £3000 then you get a Platinum card.

I said that they could at least have let me know that my application for a Platinum card was not successful, but they would be prepared to let me have a Classic card and then I could have decided whether or not to go ahead. Petty I know, but it is the principle!!

So it would seem that if you are not worthy of the £3000 credit limit, you are wealthy enough to pay an annual fee!

Just out of interest, I know that credit card companies make their money out of people who do not clear their balance each month, but don't they also get a percentage of each transaction from a store when the card is used?

Undoubtedly I will getting hit with the £20 fee in a year's time as I am only worthy of a Classic account.

Gnid

Can someone tell me what is so good about Morgan Stanley card and why is it better than the Egg Money card - both are 1%!?

vale22

I have also had a notice of changes to the terms and conditions, and that they will be introducing a £20 annual fee. I have phone them up but they could not care less. I was also under the impression that I had the platinum card. Last year I spent almost £14000 and paid it off every month my credit limit is £4300. At least my cash back is £87.29 and I am on the 1% so when I spent the £271 I will cancel my card. I have a Britannia credit card that pays the same cash back plus I get a members loyalty bonus so I will put all my spendind on to this.

Shiggaddi

I just seen lots of people have applied for the platinum card, got rejected and offered the classic, or black card, like the one I've had for 4 years.

Back then, I don't think I even applied for another card, but if they are doing all this advertising saying they don't charge a fee, yet so many people fail the application and they offer another card, which then turns out to be fee paying, and then they pocket the cashback, it seems very sharp practice, and possibly illegal as well.

When you make an application, they state the minimum salary level etc, and a few other simple financial requirements, but reject those who apply, because they decide they don't quite match what they want, but surely if they reject more than a certain percentage, they can't advertise the card as it is, and make all those claims. When loan companies advertise the APR and then offer another rate, they have to offer a certain percentage of applicants the advertised rate, otherwise they can't use it in their adverts.

I don't quite know their game, but I would suspect they knew about the fee they would charge well in advance of when it was mentioned in the statement. Although I applied for the card I wanted 4 years ago, people who have only applied this year for a card with no fee, and got another card instead, then told there would be a fee to continue using the card and be entitled to the cashback are surely being conned even more than me.

I just hope more people being owed even £1 or £2 will make a stand. Even a 10-15 minute call to MS on an 0800 number to make your feelings known will cost them in paying the call centre worker to answer the call, and the 0800 charges, and if they have to handle more calls than usual just to deal with an issue purely of their own making, then they will have to pick up the tab with staff overtime etc, just to provide a normal service for answering the extra calls.

Gnid, there is no difference to having an Egg card with 1%, and I also have one of these. I only had the MS card, because my Egg card has a low limit, so use the MS as a backup, and use my Egg card as my regular spend card, instead of MS which was my regular spend card before Egg.

Gnid

vale22, so you have the platinum or classic

by the amount of people here getting duped by MS, i am sure there is a case to argue that they didn't informed people which card they were getting.

and, just to clarify, i don't care if they intro a charge, but all people who earned their cashback should get all their cashback and not in intervals of £15 so they can cancel.

simple as that.

Shiggaddi

Gnid wrote: »

vale22, so you have the platinum or classic

by the amount of people here getting duped by MS, i am sure there is a case to argue that they didn't informed people which card they were getting.

and, just to clarify, i don't care if they intro a charge, but all people who earned their cashback should get all their cashback and not in intervals of £15 so they can cancel.

simple as that.

Summed up well, and I agree totally. Giving 6 weeks notice is enough time to close the account without penalty, and make alternative arrangements for credit cards if the MS card is your only card. If it is your only card and always paid on time, then your credit rating should be good enough to be accepted by anyone else. If you've missed payments etc, and paid lots of interest, then chances are MS want to keep you, and haven't given notice of the £20 anyway!!

vale22

I have the classic but was not told till I phoned about the charge

melbury

vale22 wrote: »

I have the classic but was not told till I phoned about the charge

But surely they should have informed us that we did not qualify for the Platinum card but they would be prepared to give us a Classic card - then at least we could have had the choice on whether or not to proceed.

It all sounds very strange to me - wish that Martin would get on to them and tell them that there are a lot of very unhappy people here!

Gnid

melbury wrote: »

But surely they should have informed us that we did not qualify for the Platinum card but they would be prepared to give us a Classic card - then at least we could have had the choice on whether or not to proceed.

I think you don't even need the option to proceed or not. If they said "you got rejected for platinum but you will get your classic card soon", then:

1. this is in line with terms (which allows them to give you other cards)
2. you know you have a different set of terms (ie. classic not platinum although it might be the same terms back then)
3. you aren't on platinum

The fact that they didn't tell anyone about this AND there is no place in the documents to indicate you got another card, you must presume to have the platinum terms and they can't tell you now you got the classic and you are subject to the classic terms. that isn't legal I think.

Shiggaddi

This article seriously needs updating. I know the platinum advertises as no fee, but surely in light of the recent experience with MS, this is one company that Martin should be telling us what could happen after applying for their card, and that any cashback benefits could be wiped out. Here is the link

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1087717218,37843,

Can someone flag this to a moderator (not sure how to do it, and not sure you can report your own post), and if the moderator or Martin is reading this, I really think that MS should not be recommended to people reading the article in light of the recent events.