Virgin Card Interest Rate Increase :(

smiler247

Hi there,

I received a letter from Virgin this morning telling me that from my Sept statement date my interest rate for purchases, cc cheques and balance transfers will go up from 9.9% (promo offer) to 18.9%. When I first applied for the card my rate was the standard 15.9%. I am lucky that I currently have another promo offer of a BT at 4.9% until March 2008, but I am quite annoyed that the rate has almost doubled! (I can understand if it went back to what it was before (15.9) but 18.9 is a lot to me.

My card is clear, I've not used it for about 4 months - do you think that could be why the rate has increased, or is it a general thing across the board due to recent interest rate rises?

Thank you for your time.

Smiler

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

we had the same, only ours went up from 12.9 to 24.9 ,as you can imagine we won't be using it again.our card was also clear.

tom188

Across the board, one could argue more due to ever increasing default rates and people reclaiming bank charges than interest rate rises per se.

ontheup_3

My father-in-law just got the same letter 10.8% to 20.9 , i told him to ring them , he did they dropped it to 13.9% which isnt great but better than 20.9

He also has another MBNA card which was 18.9% they also dropped that to 13.9% , so he therefore gained just over 2% !!!

DeeEm

Hi there, I am so glad to find this post, because I have literally just registered today for this forum to query something similar.

I paid off my full balance to Virgin on Saturday, some £5000, and my new statement was online yesterday and they have DOUBLED the interest rate applied to last month. From 15.9% to 29.9%, overnight.

Surely this can't be allowed?

I called them and was told only that it was a business decision, and I should check my credit score (which I know to be excellent).

I have sent a strongly worded letter to them today (with examples of other peoples similar experiences, thank you) querying the following:

1 The reason my rate increased by almost 100%
2 The reason why, when I called to query the increase, the customer service rep was able to reduce it back to 17.9% without checking with anyone....how is that possible if it was a 'business decision'?
3 Why did this happen at exactly the point I cleared my balance
4 Why it was put in place overnight with no notice and therefore no option to make alternative credit arrangements
5 Why the increased rate can be applied in retrospect. Surely it should apply from now on, not from last month....if that is the case, why not apply it to every month back to when I took out the card?

It was not so long ago gangsters were money lending at 30%!

If I get no satisfaction I will take it up with the Financial Ombudsman, and I will make sure as many people as possible know about this practise....and I will get back my money, even if it is just in the time it costs them to have someone respond to my letters. I assure you, they will get fed up before I do. It's not a huge amount of money, I am just livid at the sheer highway robbery-ness of it!

Anyone have Richard Bransons number???????

D

:mad: :mad: :mad:

Banderman

Credit card companies are pure evil. The truth is they'll charge whatever interest rate they think they can get away with. They're no better than unlicensed moneylenders.

jamalfatty

DeeEm wrote: »

4 Why it was put in place overnight with no notice and therefore no option to make alternative credit arrangements

They cant do this overnight, you would have been sent a letter over 30 days ago notifying you of a change in the T&C, one of which being the rise in the APR.

Whether you received this letter or read it however is a different thing

Chez2k

I've recieved this letter as well.
They are telling me that my apr is going up to 29.9%
I have just under £4000 on this card and so it is going to cost a fortune in interest.

I have just got off the phone from them and been told that they can't do anything. They won't reduce the apr.
I told them that I knew they had allowed other people to reduce back down and that I would have to balance transfer to another card and then shut this one (which isn't an option... but though i'd try it). But they just said, there are no other offers available at the moment. We can't do anything to reduce the amount.

I can honestly say that I am now up sh*t creak without a paddle.
I thought I was getting myself sorted a bit after graduating, but now I just feel like i'm fighting a loosing battle.

Anyone get any suggestions?

Cheryl

pfantasmes

I had the same type of letter. they wanted to put my rate up from 13.9% to 26.7%.Nearly 100% :eek:

Thank god I just paid the thing off last month.

I phoned the number on the bottom of the letter the express my utter disbelief and was told it was a commercial decision ( funny how last month they were please to announce that my limit had been increased by a whopping 2.5K without asking if I actually wanted it). The (obviously quite annoyed young lady) then went on to explain that as it was a variable rate card (aren't they all) the rates could go up like the bank of england rate have gone up.

It was very difficult not to loose my cool at this. I just explained most companies put there rate up a few % ..... not double it.

Some commercial decision that was. Maybe they want to come out of the money lending market. Be interested to find out if the other MBNA brands have done the same.

When I told them to cancel the account as I would not be using it again they offered to put the rate down to 15.9%. Not good enough I told them, there are plenty of other companies out there offering better rates. So they put the rate down again to the original 13.9% . This is all in the space of 2 minutes.

Me thinks they are trying it on hoping most people will not complain.

I will still be cancelling the card and account. I don't trust them.

blakeyjo

I got a letter from them this morning - my interest rate is going up from the standard 15.9% up to 29.9%!! I phoned them first thing and they put it down to 19.9% straight away - I'm on a 0% balance transfer with them at the moment which is ending in March, but I can't believe they can do this.

I grilled the girl on the phone as to why this was happening and that's all I was told was 'external factors' and she wouldn't go further than that. Other that said that if I wasn't happy to write a letter of complaint. It's disgusting they can do this but they're still advertising their credit card at 15.9% for new applications.

What is going on!?!

napoleon

Shock Horror! Credit card companies rips off its customers.