Help - Balance transfer we didnt ask for!!

kelz29

I was enquirying with credit cards to see it i could do a balance transfer of £5000, i applied to the Post Office, filled out the online form and it asked how much we were looking to transfer.
At the end of the process it said i would receive an email to say whether we had been excepted.
We have still received no email!!
2 days later we had a credit card from the post office in the post with a letter saying they had transferred over £1800!!
This was not what we wanted, we have received no terms & conditions, no details on how long the 0% balance transfer is for and point blank this isn't what we wanted, we wanted to transfer the £5000 or none at all.
We have phoned them to tell them this and all they said was it told us on their website, which it didnt!
Is there anything we can do????

[Deleted User]

The terms of the BT will be in the docs that you agreed to when you applied. And the terms and conditions will have arrived with the card.

Why did you want to transfer 5k or nothing?

goldmask

Deleted_User wrote: »

The terms of the BT will be in the docs that you agreed to when you applied. And the terms and conditions will have arrived with the card.

Why did you want to transfer 5k or nothing?

Yes that's strange. OP has already been credit checked and damage was all done. So he just need to apply for another card to transfer the rest of balance.

kelz29

on their website it says if except you will have 3 months to make the balance transfer, they did it automatically and no we have recieved no terms and conditions, just the card with a letter saying they had transferred £1800, it says it that letter that we should have already received a letter with our "Agreement" and T&C's but we've had absolutely nothing at all.

Naf

I presume PO haven't given you a 5k credit limit?
I know when I've applied for cards & put in the details of BTs I want to do, it always says that how much you can transfer will depend on the limit they give you.

kelz29

The reason why we wanted to transfer the whole lot was because the APR on our existing card is so high!
The new card hasn't even told us how many months they are giving us 0%

kelz29

Nope the PO only gave us a credit limit of 2k

[Deleted User]

kelz29 wrote: »

The reason why we wanted to transfer the whole lot was because the APR on our existing card is so high!

So why don't you want to pay less interest on £1800? I don't understand why saving something is worse than saving nothing?

[Deleted User]

kelz29 wrote: »

The new card hasn't even told us how many months they are giving us 0%

14 months assuming this is the offer you responded to.
http://www.postoffice.co.uk/credit-card

kelz29

Oh i know that it has obviously brought down our existing credit card so the monthly interest will be less, although without knowing how long the new cards 0% balance transfer is for the worry is that after that period we will the have 2 credit cards to pay off with a combined interest rate of over 50%.
If just surprised that they could just transfer what they wanted without telling us, if they had come to us and said "we see you want to transfer 5k but we can only offer you 2k do u still want to go ahead?" we could of at least thought about it instead of them just doing it.

JimmyTheWig

I agree with you, OP, that it is shoddy of them not to have let you know what has been happening through the process.
But I also agree with others that, given they would only have offered you a £2k limit the best thing you could do is transfer the £1800 allowed as soon as possible.

You might be able to argue that they didn't tell you enough information, clearly enough, and that you want the Balance Transfer reversed. Or there might be some sort of "cooling off" period where the Balance Transfer can be reversed. But don't do this just to spite the credit card company for not giving you the information you think they should have done, or for not giving you the limit that you wanted.
With £1800 at 0% you are doing better than if the full balance was still at the high interest rate.

You may want to complain to the Post Office so that they improve things for future customers. Fair enough.
You may want to complain to the Post Office so they give you a token goodwill gesture. Again, fair enough.
But it certainly sounds like you don't want to reverse this Balance Transfer.

Either apply for another 0% or low rate card elsewhere to transfer the rest (or at least another chunk) of the balance or, now that your total monthly interest will have reduced, start paying off the high interest card as quickly as you can.

You also do need the information that the Post Office should have sent you. And you certainly need to know when your 0% deal with them expires. But I would imagine that you can get this by phoning them up and asking them.