Stoozing mistake - MBNA heavy charges.

zzzLazyDaisy

dchurch24 wrote:

Incidentally, the credit card 'late payment penalty' is not actually legally enforcable under British law.

See this link:

http://www.bankchargeshell.co.uk/charges.html

I just had a look at this. It is really interesting, and could assist MSE'rs who are late with a CC payment for some reason.

It seems to me that it is important enough to warrant its own thread. I don't want to inadvertently break any MSE rules by posting the same thing twice. What do you think, Mods?

Walletwatch

zzzLazyDaisy wrote:

I just had a look at this. It is really interesting, and could assist MSE'rs who are late with a CC payment for some reason.

It seems to me that it is important enough to warrant its own thread. I don't want to inadvertently break any MSE rules by posting the same thing twice. What do you think, Mods?

Just my opinion, but I think the underlying ethos of the bankchargeshell site is in some ways conflicting to those of MSE. I have always regarded MSE as a site which uses the T&Cs that one signs up to, in ingenious (though not illegal) ways to save / profit personally. Now if we end up challenging the same T&Cs as unfair, and start contesting some of these charges, it would amount to wanting to have the cake and eat it too.

Don't get me wrong here, I do not disagree that some of these charges are extortionate, and should be made more reasonable. But this being quoted in the context of a stoozer trying to avoid charges applied for the first time by the card provider somehow doesn't sail for me.

No offence here to the OP, you are only trying to explore the best possible way to avoid paying these charges, very much what I would do, if I were in your situation.

Ivenofinmoney

Just got caught the same way myself, PC went pop weekend before the last bank holiday

By the time I had got machine up and running and installed all the neccessary firewall and security stuff it was 29th April(Bill was due to be paid on 4th.). I tried to ring and pay over telephone but got recorded message to say they can't accept telephone payment.

Payment left my account on the 29th - any other payment I have ever made I would have expected it to hit the other side just on the 4th (3 Working Days with the holiday in the way), however MBNA cunningly quote 5 working days on their t&C's and remarkably that how long they say it took.

I too received :-

£ 25.00 late payment fee
£75.00 interest @ 16%
removal of 0% interest rate offer

Having had the occasional miss calculation before, I rang up with my best honest voice explaining I'd had a few problems and the delay was completely unintentional - I did not expect the response I got.

Some dizzy woman, who obviously couldn't care if she was working for MBNA customer services or MCDonalds virtually accussed me of thieving the money when I asked if their was any way we could come to some agreement over this genuine mistake she point blank refused, I persisted until she gave me a telephone number for the Interest negotiation team, but she said they would not be available untill 8:00 the followoing morning (like a sucker I believed this !!)

When I called the number the next day, I got some blokes personal voice mail at some IT support company.

Fuming I rang MBNA main cust services line again (another 30 min wait !!) demanding to be put through directly.

Relayed the story to the chap there, who initially was quite sympathetic, he then said he needed to check somehing out ( I guess speak to his boss !!), when he returned his tune changed completely and offered me reinstatement of the 0% interest rate, but would not remove any of the charges.

I coninued to protest for about 30 mins, at one point he suggested I should have gone to an internet cafe to access my on-line banking account to pay the bill, when I asked if it was MBNA policy to recomend customers use unsecure public networks for their secure banking activities he went quiet.

He finally cracked and offered 50/50 on the costs, I begrudgingly accepted this offer, but told them I would be sending a letter of compaint.

Letter goes of tonight so I will see where we get to then !!!


Bit of a long post, but glad I got it off my chest !!!

charlie12

You did well, nice one

Some helpful tips there, cheers (Love the "unsecure public networks" - I don't think I'd have thought of that!)

WiseInvestor_2

MBNA caught me out too last month but by changing my payment due date - from the 4th to the previous 29th! I only realised on the 28th and called them to ask why I'd not been consulted. Apparently I had been duly notified as the due date is always written on the bill and it was up to me to amend my Direct Debit accordingly.

I asked how I could possibly be expected to pay a bill two days before pay day but the response was that all customers were affected. After some protest on my part, the sypathetic agent agreed to monitor my account and refund any late fee imposed as a one-off gesture. I immediately made the minimum payment online twice via both the MBNA and Barclays websites - I was shocked to find that the payment made via MBNA credited my account the following day so no late fee was actually due.

I'm still waiting to see whether I'm charged interest for not paying the balance in full, which cleared some 3 days later

BrightonLad

I hope MBNA are reasonable about this for you and you manage to get them to waive the fee, or failing that at least let you continue to get the interest free deal.

I did a BT for 6500 to my Barclaycard in August 04 and in Nov 04 the DD was returned. The second i noticed I phoned Barclaycard up and made the payment, which reached my account four days after the due date. They charged me £20 which was added to the account, which of course was not interest free so every month i am now charged 50p interest.

I am pleased this is how it worked out as i realise it was my fault the DD was returned and i was effectively late in paying. By the time the 0% is up and i have paid off the balance (cash already there in my savings!) I will have paid £24.50 in charges which is still not bad on a 0% cc balance of £6500 for 12 months!

BTW I don't normally let my finances and payments get slack like in Nov, but i had just started working 250miles from home for a 5 mnth period and staying in a hotel where at the time i had no internet/online bank facilities and also all the upheaval of living away and doing a new job, all got to much i overlooked it! All sorted now !!!

good luck dodgy_gooner!

student100

Good luck trying to get them to waive the fees, but do remember that one of the ways CC companies make money out of 0% offers is when people make little mistakes and get stung... if they waived the fee whenever anyone slipped up then asked nicely they would be struggling even more to sustain the 0% offers.

At least you'll never make this mistake again!

suzie_wong

I had a similar problem with MBNA recently, when I changed my bank account to A&L, and gave them the new DD details 3 weeks ahead of the payment due date. When my statement arrived, they had not taken the payment, and had charged me £25 late payment, £40 interest, and had removed the 0%. I phoned and was treated as if it was my fault not theirs, but managed to negotiate refund of the late payment fee, but not the interest (although they reinstated the 0% rate.) I told them what I thought, transferred all of my balance to Egg immediately (whilst waiting for M&S card to come through!), then wrote MBNA a letter telling them to close my account, explaining all the above.
About 10 days later I had a phonecall from Rachel Somebody-or-other at MBNA, asking if I'd be prepared to keep my account open if they refunded the interest. Of course I said yes, so they repaid puttingmy account in credit. I spent that amount in tesco, but now have no intention of using the card again except for if I can make some money out of them!
To cut a long story short- write a letter and complain at length to MBNA- they'll refund your interest if you threaten to close the account! : :T

deemy2004

Ive made over £400 from my MBNA card to date... now complaints here

Ivenofinmoney

suzie_wong wrote:

To cut a long story short- write a letter and complain at length to MBNA- they'll refund your interest if you threaten to close the account! : :T

Suzie, Thanks that is exactly what I am hoping will happen.- I Will keep you all informed !!!