Incorrectly charged interest?

brendon

When I signed up for my Halifax Credit Card, I have 12 months interest free period which I took advantage of.

For statements where the 'Next month's estimated interest' was £0.00, I've been making minimum payment. For the previous month's statement, this estimate was £17.76, so I switched to full payments (by direct debit) to avoid the interest.

The full payment was paid correctly, but for some reason I have still been charged interest. Am I right in thinking this is a mistake?

[Deleted User]

Cash transaction?

brendon

No, I don't make cash transactions with the card. I've been charged £13.84 based on last month's balance of £1032. The estimated interest was £17.76, so I'm not sure where the £13.84 is coming from.

brendon

I'm thinking, is the interest free period done on a date basis, as I believed it was on a statement basis? I.e. I probably should have made an additional payment to clear the balance by the end of the last statement period, rather than waiting for a statement to show an estimated interest.

I think it's a little misleading of them to print an estimated interest of £0.00, as many people would interpret this as being interest free. I can see in the small print (in retrospect) it says "does not increased increased interest if a special promotion rate you're on now ends".

I'll make a phonecall to them later and ask for a refund.

noh

What date was the end of the 12 month interest free period?
What date was the payment credited to your account?
If the payment was on or before the anniversary date then you should not have paid interest. If as I suspect it was after then interest was due.

HappyMJ

brendon wrote: »

When I signed up for my Halifax Credit Card, I have 12 months interest free period which I took advantage of.

For statements where the 'Next month's estimated interest' was £0.00, I've been making minimum payment. For the previous month's statement, this estimate was £17.76, so I switched to full payments (by direct debit) to avoid the interest.

The full payment was paid correctly, but for some reason I have still been charged interest. Am I right in thinking this is a mistake?

Interest would have been charged from the day the balance transfer deal finished. Paying the full payment on the due date will not stop the interest being charged. It's not a mistake.

brendon

noh wrote: »

What date was the end of the 12 month interest free period?
What date was the payment credited to your account?
If the payment was on or before the anniversary date then you should not have paid interest. If as I suspect it was after then interest was due.

I guess it would have been about the 7th of April 2014 (based on when I opened the account). The payment wasn't made until 2nd of May. So I assume they are right to charge the interest. I still think the estimated interest is a little deceptive, however. It wouldn't take much to post on the 12th statement "Your interest free period ends on [date]". It seems set up to deliberately mislead people.

YorkshireBoy

brendon wrote: »

It wouldn't take much to post on the 12th statement "Your interest free period ends on [date]".

It's been a while since I've had a Halifax credit card, but they certainly used to put your 0% end date (for both BTs and purchases when they were of different duration) on each and every statement, right from the outset - one of very few providers who did!

Maybe things changed when they were integrated fully into LBG?

brendon

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

It's been a while since I've had a Halifax credit card, but they certainly used to put your 0% end date (for both BTs and purchases when they were of different duration) on each and every statement, right from the outset - one of very few providers who did!

Maybe things changed when they were integrated fully into LBG?

Oh you're right, it's written on the last page of the statement. To be fair, I only bother looking at the front page so it's probably my fault for not noticing it. I'll pay closer attention next time.