Tesco Balance Transfer Offer - Misleading?

andymd

Cornucopia wrote: »

I've read all of the posts & links and I still don't understand why the OP was charged that much interest. It doesn't seem to fit the explanations provided.

I've not got that much experience of BTs, because I avoid paying CC fees or interest (have avoided them for years). But, I would like to understand this issue, so I can maintain my record in the future.

The £38 interest was charged on my standard balance, between the purchase date and the payment date, in some cases this may have been up to 56 days, so is almost 2 months interest.

Normally, I wouldn't have incurred this interest if I paid off the card in full by the due date, but as I kept the BT on the card (only 1 month into 6 months free period) I incurred interest on all the purchases.

It sounds like from the responses, this is perfectly normal and fair and I should avoid mixing purchases and BT on same card in future.

I agree with you that this is misleading, many of these purchases were made prior to the BT offer being sent to me and there was no warning that to benefit I needed to clear my balance first.

thenudeone

The current terms here http://www.tescobank.com/assets/sections/credit-cards/pdf/tesco-bank-cc-pur-summary-box.pdf state:

You will not pay interest on new purchases if you pay your balance in full and on time. Otherwise, the period over which interest is charged is as follows:
Purchases From date debited to your account Until repaid in full

You didn't pay the balance in full..

Therefore you have been charged interest on purchases.

You were offered a 0% BT deal and you have been charged 0% on the BT.

What is misleading about that? It's quite clear.

All credit cards work in the same way.

The golden rule:
"Never mix Purchases and Balance Transfer offers on the same card"
still applies, although it should probably be a silver rule now that improved payment hierarchy is in place.

andymd

"All credit cards work in the same way."

No they don't. As I said in my original post I have another credit card with HSBC which does not work in the same way.

If I have a balance transfer and purchases on the account, I am not charged interest on purchases as long as the full non-promotional balance is paid in full.

This makes sense and I had wrongly assumed this would be standard practice.

I think Tesco should be warning customers when they send these offers, that to benefit you have to have a zero balance.

aleph_0

andymd wrote: »

"All credit cards work in the same way."

No they don't. As I said in my original post I have another credit card with HSBC which does not work in the same way.

But HSBC's terms and conditions are exactly the same as Tesco's:

http://www.hsbc.co.uk/1/2/credit-cards/credit-card/interest-rates wrote:

You will not pay interest on purchases if you pay your balance in full and on time each month. Otherwise, the period over which interest is charged will be as detailed in the table below

They might have chosen not to charge you interest (I'd suggest, that maybe after your second call about their mistake, someone might have manually changed the purchase rate to 0%, or something, to 'fix' things), but their T&Cs allow them to. This is standard practice.

sivs

Best way to prevent this happening in the furture is have one card for BT and the other for purchases.

callum9999

andymd wrote: »

"All credit cards work in the same way."

No they don't. As I said in my original post I have another credit card with HSBC which does not work in the same way.

If I have a balance transfer and purchases on the account, I am not charged interest on purchases as long as the full non-promotional balance is paid in full.

This makes sense and I had wrongly assumed this would be standard practice.

I think Tesco should be warning customers when they send these offers, that to benefit you have to have a zero balance.

I have yet to see a single credit card that doesn't work in this way. Although despite them telling you twice you don't seem to believe them, they are absolutely correct. HSBC have exactly the same policy and no doubt only refunded the interest to shut you up!

Don't make up your own terms and conditions, they clearly say you have to pay off the "balance" in full, not the "non-promotional balance".

No doubt they will be forced to warn customers in future. It seems people are becoming increasingly unable to apply for credit without fraudulently claiming they had both read, and agreed to, the terms of the contract...

andymd

callum9999 wrote: »

I have yet to see a single credit card that doesn't work in this way. Although despite them telling you twice you don't seem to believe them, they are absolutely correct. HSBC have exactly the same policy and no doubt only refunded the interest to shut you up!

Don't make up your own terms and conditions, they clearly say you have to pay off the "balance" in full, not the "non-promotional balance".

No doubt they will be forced to warn customers in future. It seems people are becoming increasingly unable to apply for credit without fraudulently claiming they had both read, and agreed to, the terms of the contract...

I'll be expecting a knock on the door from the fraud squad then for failing to have fully understood the implications of each and every T&C, which no doubt have changed multiple times since I "fraudulently claimed to have read then" 10 years or so ago.

I'm not making up any T&Cs, I know what HSBC T&Cs say but in practice they do not charge me interest. I would be surprised if they write off interest every month just to "Shut me up"

I'm not disputing what the Tesco T&Cs say, however a wider point was whether this is fair or not. Terms and conditions can say whatever they like, doesn't mean it's right. Like the allocation of payments, these were in the T&Cs, it didn't make it right.

Cornucopia

It seems like this is another "catch" that needs to go the way of negative payment hierarchy.

sfax

Don't mix balance transfers and purchases on the same card. Get a separate card for BTs and use one for purchases. Very simple.

zerog

sfax wrote: »

Don't mix balance transfers and purchases on the same card. Get a separate card for BTs and use one for purchases. Very simple.

Well, or get a 0% purchases and BT, and make sure the purchases are paid off or transferred elsewhere in full by the end of the purchase period if it's shorter