Credit Card Help!!

Speedy34

Hi,

Firstly i'm new to this credit stuff so beare with me.

I'm currently looking at borrowing a sum of £2000 and looking at personal loans i would be paying for it. However i have been offered the amount on a credit card with 0% APR for 16 months with Tesco which i will pay off by direct debit and lock my card away out of temptation.

Now the money would be used to purchase a private car from a freind however the customer service from tesco said i would be charge for cash withrawls but if i were to purchase direct on the card it would be free?? Is is possible/easy to set up a private purchase? Are there any loop holes i need to be aware of?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

JakeGreen

It's not exactly a loop hole, but there will be a transaction fee involved, you should be able to do it for 2.75% or less, so for your friend to receive 2k for the car it'll cost you £2055.

redpete

You need to make sure that the conditions on 0% interest rate offer allow you to make cash withdrawals that qualify for the offer - from your report of the conversation with customer services I suspect it won't - so you would get charged the cash withdrawal fee and interest on the amount withdrawn..

I'm not aware of any way to make a private car purchase look like a merchant purchase. You would need a 'super balance transfer' card that allows you to transfer a balance from a current account (and then withdraw the money from that account), I'm fairly sure Tesco do not offer this.

212

Does the £2,000 0% offer with Tesco include balance transfers? And do you have another credit card with a 2k limit? If yes to both of those, you could purchase on another credit card (by withdrawing the cash) then balance transfer across - although that would cost you the cash fees & interest on card 1 (until they receive the payment from Tesco) plus a Balance Transfer fee from Tesco.

To cut the interest on card 1, you could instruct Tesco to do the BT before you actually withdraw the cash. I transferred more than I owed on my Nationwide card and Barclaycard never actually checked (not sure if they can/are allowed). That would also guarantee you Tesco BT will go through.

Before you do anything I'd 100% make sure you have 'got' the Tesco card - 'pre-approved' cards can still be declined (although unlikely). The last thing you want is to have made a 2k cash withdrawal one one card and then find out you've got nowhere to transfer it to!

Also you'd need to clarify the points posters have made above regarding whether cash or a balance transfer would count - and get it in writing. Cash is almost certainly no, BT is a possibility but not certain

Edit: There is a cash limit too - so you'd need to check you have that, even if you do have a 2k credit limit. I've found cash to generally be half of the credit limit, but it does vary.