Balance Negotiation

Chrysalis

if you dont like the terms of credit cards then dont use them.

I backed you up in the other thread, but your thoughts in here are very wrong. Also with that 25k loan freshly paid into your bank account you will find it hard to prove a financial need to have a partial default on the card debt.

eddddy

It might be worth looking at this from Barclaycard's perspective.

Their business model is as follows: They lend people money, and make a profit by charging them interest.

So they would prefer you to keep borrowing £9k and paying interest. They don't want you to pay it back. So they're unlikely to offer you a special deal for paying back £9k.


(It would be a bit like cancelling a magazine subscription, and asking the magazine company to give you a reward for doing so.)

Jd2015

I said I would come back with my the results as I expected they were not willing to offer any incentive to clear the entire balance. He said he checked my account for any promotions and then came back with the no.

Jd2015

Thought I'd share this for anyone who was interested.

Today I phoned up to pay off my credit card balance and close the account. Payment was made and balance reduced to zero when i went to close the account i was given the whole "you've been such a loyal customer" spiel and they offered me 0% interest on my account for a year. Obviously I have no intention of using the card again so this didn't appeal to me. I complained that I was never given any incentive/promtional rate etc whilst I was a loyal customer and spoke to someone yesterday who gave me no incentive to continue with yourselves so it's all a little too late. The guy then said he would put £50 credit on my account as a thank you for being a loyal customer.

So £50 diesel, cut the card up and close it in a month or two time

Ps sorry for destroying the economy!

eskbanker

Sounds like a decent result in the end - it's not unusual for the card companies to offer retention deals when cardholders are threatening to walk away, in the same way that car insurance companies, Sky TV, etc, do, and it is arguably a cynical practice rather than rewarding true loyalty.

Did they make the position clear about trailing interest? The balance would have been generating interest between the last statement date and today's payment so that'll need payment - did they adjust the balance accordingly today or will it come through on your next statement?

Smodlet

... as opposed to credit cards? It is possible and, I would think, advisable to negotiate a discount (knows as a "figure to settle") on a loan if you are paying it off early but this does not apply to credit cards. The best thing to do with them is as has already been advised on this thread: Pay them off early if you can and avoid a whole load of interest charges, to say nothing of earning credit brownie points with the lender(s)

bris

The CC business is worth trillions, really trillions, do you think your 9k means anything to them?


Do you really think they would want to set a precedent where anyone can just phone up and say hey I owe you 9k will you settle for 7.


To get a settlement like that you really need to be at the lowest point in your life. Where they have already came after you hard, where you have nothing left for them to take and only when they are sure of this they will offer you a last ditch deal to try and recover anything they can.

knightstyle

Years ago when credit cards were not as popular as now my wife ran away with the lodger leaving me with £15k owing on cards. I went to citizens advice who negotiated about 1/3 off some of them as long as I paid the outstanding by DDs. So it is possible but only when a third party is handling your money problems.
Bejams, now Iceland were the big losers as she used a card after I had stopped it and they would not negociate, so I didn't pay them and told them to chase her.

Jd2015

Well bris yeah i do think it meant something to them or else they wouldn't have gave me £50 to keep my account open with a zero balance on it.

Yes eskbanker I made sure it was 100% clear (someone else had warned me of something similar) and I was in the process of cancelling the account completely when he gave me the £50 back to not close it.

As you say absolutely perfect result in the end and essentially exactly what I wanted eg. balance cleared and saved myself a little bit of money (£50). I should have maybe pushed for £100

Lemonsqueezer78

In my opinion - if you wanted to get your goods and services cheaper, the time to "negotiate" was with the retailers you made your purchases from, before you made contracts with them to purchase their goods.

This is exactly why negotiating with retailers is more socially and morally palatable... because that negotiation expressly happens before the agreement (and contract) is actually made. And it is fair to all parties.

The credit card company, the entity you ALREADY have a long standing contract in place with which already defines for you exactly what you need to pay, is not the entity you should be "negotiating" with.

In this case, it appeared that you were simply trying to determine whether it is possible to "blag" a reduction in the amount you owe, not for reasons of any genuine financial hardship, but just because you felt inclined to chance it - or because, in defiance of the agreement you made with your CC company, you now suddenly feel you have paid them enough.

To be fair, I don't know what reactions you were really expecting, however I must say your proposal is one I found...interesting. I'm personally not judging you - but it demonstrates a such a high degree of moral ambiguity and sheer front, I'm not exactly surprised at the reaction you have got. And you shouldn't be either, frankly...

In any case, well done on getting them to give you a retention offer. If you'd have asked the question as "will they give me some kind of offer to persuade me not to cancel" your responses may have been somewhat different. But there you go.