Barclaycard £50 Credit for bad press

peterborough

Had a Barclaycard for 30+ years with a £20K credit limit. Not used it for years so tried MSE's suggestion of threatening cancellation in hope of a £50 retention sweetener. No chance. Offered to reduce the credit limit - no use as I always pay in full. Then offered a reduce interest rate for 6 months - they weren't listening as 'no' for the same reason. Lastly offered 1% cash back for 6 months - but I can get more with other cards. Nothing else on offer so she cancelled my card.

Cornishmummy

Hi,
I phoned to close account today and they put me through to customer loyalty. They looked up various details to confirm that I was a customer worth keeping but all could offer me was 1% cashback for 6 months. I did ask outright whether they could give me cash/account credit as an incentive to stay with them. They said they had heard about the website saying this but can only refund interest paid and, as I don't ever pay interest, they could not provide me with any credit.
Hope this helps.
xx

Buffyhater42

Just rang up, attempted to close my accout which has had zero balance for approx 4 months, before that had a hefty balance transfer and still no joy. offered me everything else under the sun like balance tfr etc but went ahead and closed, phew, they dont half try to keep it open eh!!!!! :T

Womble_79

I phoned up today for the third time to cancel. The first time I was offered £10, the second time I was offered £15 and today I was offered £20. I reduced my credit limit the first time.

Bodebobo

I have two barclaycards, an old egg one and a platinum one. They gave me £50 a few months back when I went to close the egg one.

Last month I went to close this one again and was offered the cashback card (6% for first 3 months) and also, after some negotiation, £50 to cover the first 2 years of annual fees. I asked if they could do anything with the platinum card also and was offered 15 months 0% at 2.9% fee. When I said I could get that anywhere they offered to credit the account to effectively reduce the fee to 0.9% - giving an AER of only 0.7%.

Glad I did cos after this weeks moneysaving email which they are now alerted too l think they will be changing their approach to this discretionary offer.

sirmarcus

Saw the MSE email today, phoned up B/card to cancel my account, offered loads of deals to stay (including cashback, 0% balance transfers, etc.), declined every offer then offered £40.00 credit to my card to stay. Accepted immediately. Ain't used my B/card for many months as I have other credit cards and I pay off the amounts in full each month.

TBH...I have actually made a profit on credit cards due to their incompetence.

I will try the same trick in a few months with B/card and hopefully I will be as successful.

cafc98

Thanks MSE...... Just got £50 quid

jolleydiver

Hi Martin, saw your post re the Barclaycard offer to customers asking to leave. I can report although I did not get £50 I did get given £20. Still £20 more than I had 30 minutes ago. Thank you. :j







Made redundant 3 years ago, debt free ever since...:)

vladman

Just called to cancel a Barclaycard cashback card I've had for 5-6 years, and haven't used in the last 3-4 years, with a balance of £0 on it.

They tried to tempt me to stay by telling me what a great APR rate I had on purchases (11-ish%) and that I could use it for balance transfers, and also offered to reduce my credit limit. I politely explained I no longer needed the card and none of these incentives would persuade me to keep it. I was in two minds about mentioning the fact people were being paid money to keep it, and in the end didn't, thinking they might react negatively to that. Thinking back, I actually had nothing to lose.

Those that managed to get £50 (or whatever), did you mention that you heard others were being offered credit to stay?

In the end, she just said I'll receive a letter confirming the closure of the account.

Meh.

sirmarcus

vladman wrote: »

Those that managed to get £50 (or whatever), did you mention that you heard others were being offered credit to stay?

No. The tact that I took was to mention several times that I was cancelling my card because of the bad press associated with Barclays (Libor, Bob Diamond, PPI, etc.) and I was embarassed to be associated with Barclays cos of this. I also mentioned that I could beat or match their 0% balance transfer, 1% cashback, etc. offers with my other credit cards.

Worked a treat and thanks MSE.:D:money::j