Caught out by Virgin

AnotherDad

Hi,

I have a virgin card which i transferred 10k to in order to consolidate from being screwed over by divorce and an ex wife who could not help herself. During the period it was 0% but when it finished it`s now 30%! At present i`m now stuck paying £314 a month with £200 of that being interest. I spoke to virgin and explained that the whole reason i moved across was because i was advised that the repayment after the period if cannot move it again will be around £174. They did not seem to care less and said nothing they can do i must continue paying £314 or they will take action if i don`t.

I cannot move to another card as i can`t take any out, since the divorce / house sale i`m living on a breadline and cannot take anymore credit out.

What are my options?

Cheers,

[Deleted User]

If you can't get further credit, then all you can do is reduce costs and throw as much as you can towards the debt.

The DFW boards are a good place to start.

grumbler

AnotherDad wrote: »

...i was advised that the repayment after the period if cannot move it again will be around £174. ..

Any paperwork? Your standard APR when you took the card? Summary box? For £10K £174 minimum payments correspond to just 9.25% APR that seems to be very unlikely for a BT or a money transfer.

AnotherDad

Yes it does and i hadn`t calculated it at the time (head in a blur with everything going on). Anyhow is their anything that i can do to try and get them to reduce the interest rate? I am looking into a DMP so don`t want to do anything before hand that may risk the DMP being accepted by MBNA.

Cheers,

Jigga

Nothing that I take any pleasure in and at this stage there are only learns and decisions about how to manage this for the future, but it is a timely reminder that this is standard Virgin CC practice. I've had three cards with them now and every time it has been the same M.O. Great deal at the start on a long 0% interest rate, then it goes on to standard rate at say 16% and then it suddenly goes up to 30% and one time 36% in very quick succession. If you have a high balance and they think that you can't move it anywhere else they rack up the vig and leave you to take it.

Fortunately I only got a little singed on the first card and learnt with the following ones, only using them for 0% deals. Last month they informed me, whilst on a deal that was nearing the end, that the rate would be going up from 16% to 30%, so obviously it was time to bail out, reject the rate, clear the card, have it cancelled and then I'll be back again as required in the future for 0% with a new card!!!!

More Virgin rate jacking tales from back in tha day here

DJBenson

Isn't Martin Lewis an advocate of avoiding "rate-jacking" - there must be a guide on the site somewhere, but basically you can prevent future rate rises by effectively closing your account whilst you still have a balance. By doing this, the card company are unable to impose any further rises but in return you must a) not spend any more on the account and b) repay the debt in a "reasonable" amount of time.

EDIT: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/credit-card-interest-rate-increases

AnotherDad

Hi,

Yep they`ve done exactly that. I have 10k on the card as with my divorce i had to move monies around to afford the bills. With this i`m not able to move the 10k anywhere else so really not sure where to go / what to do? The £300+ a month repayments are causing me to go near bankrupt and i`m struggling to reduce the amount on there.

Cheers,