Vanquis Bank Charges!!

Kitten101

:mad:

Okay I need a little help here....my hubby took out a Vanquis Credit Card due to low rating.

And we are paying it back slowly threw direct debit, we have tried to reason with them and yet with low funds in the household we had to stick to a limit they set.

But I am worried as they keep charging my husband £12 each damn time he goes overdrawn. Now we only go overdrawn each time because of them slapping this charge on.

We do not use the card as we wanted to clear the bill, and yet there constently putting us in the red....and I am getting totally fed up with them.

Is there something we can do, as I say hubby doesn't have money to splash around and the direct debit was something we insisted to them we pay back so they stop harrassing us.

The limit we pay them back...is up to them...as they change the debit each time. Is this right, can they keep slapping this charge on when it's them putting us overdrawn as we struggle to clear the funds.

Any help will help me out here?

Thanks so much

Curr946

ok, if you were near / exceeded the limit and only paid min payment, the following month interest and fees would take you over the limit again. If you only pay min payment, next month new fee for being over the limit, hence putting you over the limit yet again.

The trick here is to pay more than the min payment AND STOP USING THE CARD!

Kitten101

Ahh I see.....it's annoying as right now with money as short as it is we can only make the mininal payments.

And we don't use the card at all...it's on the shelf getting dust

But thanks for the help

stephane_2

They are allowed to add the fee each month your balance is over the limit...the only way for you to get out is to bring the balance well below the limit.....

Gromitt

You need to pay more than the minimum each month, otherwise the interest will push you over your limit and then you'll get £12 next month, so then you'll need to find interest + £12.

So you need to cut back on something else and pay a big chunk off, then you'll only get interest, rather than interest + charges each month.

Vanquis is expensive to hold a balance, so clear it as fast as possible. Make it priority.

Maybe the bank will offer you a loan to pay it off? I'd imagine the card is about 39%, compared to a bank loan at 6% or so.

YorkshireBoy

Your monthly statement carries the message...

"Estimated interest next month £xx.xx".

It follows, does it not, that if you pay less than this amount you will, at some point in the furture, be over your limit?

You say he got the card due to a "low rating". Was that because he had no previous card history, or due to him having credit problems in the past? Either way, the £12 fees are lowering his credit rating still further if overlimit markers are being placed on his credit reports.

Kitten101

Thanks for the help here

No I wouldn't take a loan as I feel it would make money even tighter.

And yes trying to pay them off is our main bill right now, well as well as christmas and stupid household equipment breaking.

Thanks for the help, it helps knowing that we can look ahead and try and get this bill out of the way. I was just worried they were putting the price up just to get more out of us.

But we will keep doing what we can till we are rid of this bill

Gromitt

Kitten101 wrote: »

No I wouldn't take a loan as I feel it would make money even tighter.

On the contrary, it would make it more loose as you would be paying a lot less interest each month, and so you could (at your choice) decide to pay more off each month instead of feeding vanquis.

But of course its your choice.

callum9999

Though you are 100% in the wrong (and unusually have accepted that instead of launching a futher tirade about how Vanquis are scam artists etc!) it's definitely worth an attempt to get some of those charges refunded.

Call them up and apologise saying you didn't realise that you'd be getting that fee each month and you'll now make sure it stops and they might give you some/all of it back as a gesture of goodwill.

dresdendave

Gromitt wrote: »

Maybe the bank will offer you a loan to pay it off? I'd imagine the card is about 39%, compared to a bank loan at 6% or so.

This is not intended to be disrespectful to the OP but I think people who have a Vanquis card with frequent overlimit charges are unlikely to get a loan at 6%.

Anthorn

Over limit charges are only half the story: For every month you're over limit you'll also get a red over limit entry on your credit file which will stay for 6 years and which willl infuence credit applications. So in this case I think it's highly unlikely that the OP will get a loan. I also think it's highly unlikely that Vanquis will make a gesture of goodwill and refund some of the charges. They may well come to an agreement to make lower repayments due to hardship and cut the charges but that will send the account into default and they will block the card from further use and will cancel the account when it's fully paid.

As stated in previous posts probably the only way to go is to avoid the over limit charge by making payments which include at least the minimum payment and the estimated interest both of which are included on your statement. Direct debit payments only pay the minimum payment if you have set it as such and don't take account of the upcoming interest. So you will have to make an extra payment to cover the interest.

It might also be worth getting your £2.00 credit reports to see the effect of being over limit.