Tonight's advice on TV

funny.money

On tonight's MSE programme the advice given by Martin Lewis was to transfer 5000 pounds of debt from one credit card to another which had a lower interest rate, both cards having a 5000 limit. How could this go ahead as once you add on the transfer fee it would take you over the 5000 limit?

guesswho2000

funny.money wrote: »

On tonight's MSE programme the advice given by Martin Lewis was to transfer 5000 pounds of debt from one credit card to another which had a lower interest rate, both cards having a 5000 limit. How could this go ahead as once you add on the transfer fee it would take you over the 5000 limit?

It's hypothetical, if you had a £5k limit, they wouldn't allow a £5k transfer, it's usually limited to 90% of your limit or whatever.

However, if you have a £7k limit on your new 0% card, then no problem. I haven't watched it yet (thank god for Sky+) but I expect they meant £5k debt, rather than a £5k limit?

Sally22_2

I thought the same funnymoney.

Guesswho, they werent using new cards with 0% deals in the example, they were using 3 existing cards with varying balances and all with 5k limits. So in the examples given, there were transfer fees and they were advising to transfer a 5k balance from one card to another, which would incur fees and take you over the limit straight away.

guesswho2000

Sally22 wrote: »

I thought the same funnymoney.

Guesswho, they werent using new cards with 0% deals in the example, they were using 3 existing cards with varying balances and all with 5k limits. So in the examples given, there were transfer fees and they were advising to transfer a 5k balance from one card to another, which would incur fees and take you over the limit straight away.

Ah I see, an interesting oversight if so, however this http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/credit-cards/cut-credit-card-interest explains it all.

~Chameleon~

I thought there was only a £4K and £1K balance on the two cards? At least I only counted 4 yellow people

guesswho2000

~Chameleon~ wrote: »

I thought there was only a £4K and £1K balance on the two cards? At least I only counted 4 yellow people

Nope, definitely 5 yellow. Just watched it, Martin did indeed fail to mention that you'd lost the promo rate straight away by going overlimit once the BT fee is added

The_Boss

guesswho2000 wrote: »

Nope, definitely 5 yellow. Just watched it, Martin did indeed fail to mention that you'd lost the promo rate straight away by going overlimit once the BT fee is added

Oh dear. How on earth did that get through the production/editing of the show?

[Deleted User]

I was thinking the same thing too. But for the sake of simplicity of the average ITV viewer, it gets the point across.

I would assume that when trying to do the first transfer from yellow to red, yellowCo would tell the customer that they could transfer up to £4700 (or whatever) to account for the fee.

The_Boss

billbennett wrote: »

I was thinking the same thing too. But for the sake of simplicity of the average ITV viewer, it gets the point across.
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I'd say the average simple viewer is exactly the type that would fall foul of the dodgy advice.

Hopefully there will be a correction on next week's show.

funny.money

The_Boss wrote: »

I'd say the average simple viewer is exactly the type that would fall foul of the dodgy advice.

Hopefully there will be a correction on next week's show.

I agree with both these comments, I think most people who watch this show believe everything Martin Lewis says about money, but in this instance he was wrong and it needs be corrected.