Advice re balance transfer

bassl1ne

Whilst on a call recently to Natwest Credit Card services i was advised that as a special customer offer i could transfer a balance from another card to recieve 9 month interest free on the transfer.

After reviewing my statement i am not happy to find that i wasn't told there was a £6.97 transfer fee, which consequently put me over my limit so that i got charged another £12!

Is it me or was the information i was provided completely misleading? I will speak to the bank on Monday but would like some advice as to what my rights are and how i should go about getting my money back.


Thanks in advance.

jonesMUFCforever

Most credit cards will only transfer up to 95% of the available limit.

Could it be that another transaction took you over your limit?

bassl1ne

ejones999 wrote: »

Most credit cards will only transfer up to 95% of the available limit.

Could it be that another transaction took you over your limit?

It wasn't the balance transfer that took me over the limit but the charge associated with this. I spoke to Natwest today who advised they are unable to reverse the charge and strangely they dont keep a record of who did the transfer!

It is my belief that therefore as this charge was not authorised by myself that it is fraudulent... will see what happens tomorrow when i speak to fraudulent transactions dept.

tom188

did you not ask if there was a fee attached, or were you not advised?

darich

bassl1ne wrote: »

It wasn't the balance transfer that took me over the limit but the charge associated with this.

If the charge of 6.97 took you over the limit and remembering that you've already been advised that most cards only trasnfer up to 95% of the limit in a balance transfer, then unless the limit of your card is only around £130, it's been another transaction that has put you over the limit.

By that i mean if what you say is true ie the charge put you over, then that must have been the last 5% of your balance. I doubt very much the limit is £130 so therefore the charge has been incurred due to another transaction going onto the card.

bassl1ne

To clarify, the transfer was not taken from my card for 4 days, other pending transactions went in place before the balance transfer and fee hence the over limit (which was only £4.16). However i'm not too worried about this, i'm more concerned about the fact the charge was not mentioned in the first place.

This is the first time i have ever done a balance transfer and was not aware of any charges for doing that, it sounded from the sales talk as if i was simply making a payment from my Natwest card to my Barclaycard. So I did not ask wether there were charges involved, maybe my fault, but if i purchase a product or service elsewhere i don't expect to get charged more than i'm quoted and then told i should of asked if im going to be charged more than the stated price.

jonesMUFCforever

Well the only conclusive way to solve it is to ask them to listen to the tape of your conversation.
This will show whether the adviser told you about the charge or not.

It seems that you have transferred a balance with purchases already on the card. This is never a good idea IMO.

bassl1ne

Eventually got it sorted out and got my money refunded, although no apology.

The poor attitude of credit card companies towards their customers does amaze me, its takes little effort to defuse a situation by being curtious and polite however this skill seems to have been lost somewhere.... except obviously for when they are trying to sell you their latest service.

A lesson learnt there for me i think.