Morgan Stanley - ****S!

taxi73

They pay any time of the month

MrsMillar

It's not so much when they pay that concerns me, but when cashback becomes "claimable". In otherwords, can I claim the cashback earned from my additional spend (to take it to above the £15 threshold) before my next statement date (which would be after the annual fee is introduced)?

ey_up

Hi Mrs Millar.

The cash back only becomes payable to you on your statement date, so if, like me (and as it sounds), your statement date is after June 1st you've lost your cash back. Thats the disgraceful bit.

Interestingly though I've just had a mail shot from motley fool which links to this article http://www.fool.co.uk/news/your-money/credit-cards/2007/05/11/make-money-with-your-credit-card.aspx?source=ioowftxt0010011

Apparently they will let you upgrade the account to a Platinum if you qualify. Well atleast thats what they told a reputable online website while telling me something totally different. I certainly was not allowed to "switch" my account. Grrh

MrsMillar

Aaaarrrgghh! That's what I was worried about. Oh well, I shall ask for the cashback anyway, you never know.... I'm not going to pay the annual fee just to get the cashback. Even though I would win out overall if I kept the card for the next year, it's the principle of the thing.

I tried applying for a Platinum card but was turned down on the basis that I already have an account with them (not for much longer though!). Anyway, I understand the MS credit limit needs to be £3K for an upgrade? My classic card credit limit never got above £1900, which was often insufficient. Just been accepted for Egg Money though with £5400 limit - yay!

I am v. p**sed off about MS and the whole cashback/ annual charge thing.

MrsMillar

Just to confirm - despite the fact that I have made payments to take my cashback to over £15, this cannot be claimed until after my next statement date (2 June). I asked if I could change my statement date, whilst I was told I could, this would not come into effect until July.

Essentially, the only way I can get my (earned in good faith) cashback is to pay the £20 annual fee on 1st June. Needless to say, I have closed my account, tho I will be writing to them and putting to them that this is no way to treat customers, even if it is strictly all in their T&Cs.

Even tho I know I would be better off paying the annual fee and then earning more cashback next year, for me it's the principle of the thing. I am so angry about this.

Stevie9685

Don't worry Ey-up, it's not just you, I was told initially I could upgrade to Platinum, and to ring back in a week if I hadn't heard anything. A week later when I call i'm told I can't upgrade. Even waiting 30 mins to talk to a manager didn't help, she said I couldn't upgrade so I asked to close the account. They didn't even seem to care! And I had a credit limit over £3000! I'm currently torn between applying for a Platinum card on the basis I rarely have to get in touch with them, or going for the Egg Money Card/Account Combi thing.Anyone got any suggestions to help me choose please?

Jandy123

Dear All, I have one of these platinum cards, I worked out that if I spent my 1500 balance every time I would be due about £50 cashback over a year so even if they scrounge back £20 of it in charges I'm still better off. However, I just had a letter from them saying they are changing the date of full pay direct debits to 15 days after the statement date. It could just be my dodgy maths, but I can't work out what the effects of this might be on my finances. If any of you razor-sharp brainy types have spotted their angle on this I'd be grateful for some advice. I was just thinking they might be hoping it either pushes people over their credit limit so they can charge them, or encourages the thrifty not to make too much cashback out of them to put us off using them as a facility rather than them milking us for profit. What do you think? Best wishes from Jandy

gromituk

I have just been on the phone to Morgan Stanley for the third time, having not received my 3% cashback on the first £2000. Earlier, I had been told that I was getting 1.5% cashback on all additional spending until the beginning of May, and that the May statement would therefore show the additional cashback. Sure enough, it didn't appear, and the same excuse has been used again: "IT problems". I told them that IT problems are not an excuse they can use for three months and that they should have made sure their computer systems had been programmed to fulfil the promises they were making about cashback to draw in the customers before they made these promises. I'm sure the FSA would indeed be very interested to know about this, because it is a simple breach of contract by Morgan Stanley.

Having been told by the agent that his team leader would give me the same story, I asked to speak to the head of IT and was put on hold for the usual convincing length of time before being told no-one was available and they'd call back. I quote him this thread about call backs and said I therefore hoped I really would be called back. I'll keep you informed.

I hope Martin is aware of this because I found out about the card on this site. In no way am I blaming Martin, but I'm sure he'd be interested in giving them a prod with a sharp stick as it reflects badly on him when something he recommends in his weekly email turns sour like this. In fact, I'll send him a PM now, just in case he hesn't heard about these problems.

MSE_Martin

Hi.

It does seem MS isn't working well at the moment and it is dropping the cashback card for new customers andthe card division is going to be relaunched within the Goldfish brands. It's all a bit confused.

However my suspicion is that's seperate to some of the issues above. The problems seems to be that while many applied for the MS plat they were actually given a MS classic (annoyingly card companies can do this, Capital one, the other big US bank does the same). So I suspect its not your cashback that's messed up but which card you've got.

I'm in the process of rewriting cashback article to take out MS. It's dropping the cashback on the 25 this month, and while it says existing customers will still get it; I'm not sure how long it'll last.

gromituk

Thanks Martin! However, I've got my card in front of me, and unless Morgan Stanley spells the word "classic" P-L-A-T-I-N-U-M, then that doesn't apply in my case!