Shop Direct over limit, never missed a payment

connormill

Not sure is this is the correct board or not, so apologies if it's wrong.

I have an account with Shop Direct (very.co.uk) and I haven't made a purchase on it for nearly a year, last August was the last purchase.

I have a direct debit setup to pay just the minimum every month as I have other priority debts to clear first.

Recently a Buy Now Pay Later has reached the end of its interest free period and is now accruing interest on my account.

My most recent statement had it's interest charged way above what the minimum was and now the account is overlimit by £6

Do I have grounds for complaint here? I have always believed that a minimum must always cover the interest and a portion of the capital every month?

SnowTiger

connormill wrote: »

Not sure is this is the correct board or not, so apologies if it's wrong.

I have an account with Shop Direct (very.co.uk) and I haven't made a purchase on it for nearly a year, last August was the last purchase.

I have a direct debit setup to pay just the minimum every month as I have other priority debts to clear first.

Recently a Buy Now Pay Later has reached the end of its interest free period and is now accruing interest on my account.

My most recent statement had it's interest charged way above what the minimum was and now the account is overlimit by £6

BNPL purchase accrue interest, however it is waived if you pay for the purchase before the BNPL later ends.

As you haven't paid for it, the interest that has accrued during the BNPL period has now been added to your account. You're now paying interest on interest.

connormill

Well I now know that BNPL accre interest the whole time, but surely the minimum should cover that, no?

Sure, it's only over by £6, but this lot will probably try to whack on an overlimit charge

From my point of view I've stuck to my end of the deal and paid every month without fail and now I'll get an overlimit charge

Dobbibill

I don't see any grounds for complaint sorry.

You bought something on BNPL and knew/were informed of when that would end. You've still only made the minimum payment. I totally understand why, with the other priority debts, I'm not having a pop.

The charges/minimum payment should bring the account back within its limit. This should also be detailed on the statement, although I would probably bring it back within the limit before the due date if possible.

connormill

Dobbibill wrote: »

I don't see any grounds for complaint sorry.

You bought something on BNPL and knew/were informed of when that would end. You've still only made the minimum payment. I totally understand why, with the other priority debts, I'm not having a pop.

The charges/minimum payment should bring the account back within its limit. This should also be detailed on the statement, although I would probably bring it back within the limit before the due date if possible.

I get your point.

The way I was looking at it was that the interested was added on the statement, when the DD for that statement was taken from the bank, they did not increase the Direct Debit to allow for the extra interest charges on this month's statement

Admittedly, I should've checked the statement and not just allowed the DD to be claimed, but as I haven't bought anything in months and I was was under the limit at this point, I dont normally check them and concentrate instead on other debts. Wont be making that mistake again.

I had just always assumed that a monthly minimum payment should cover any interested on that statement.

pfpf

my opinion is that if you have your account set for "minimum payment" and pay by DD then like you I would assume any DD taken would cover, well, the minimum amount required to keep the account in good standing.
surely an error by the company?

assuming of course by "minimum payment" you don't mean a set amount you have chosen yourself which fell below the actual required.

GingerBob_3

pfpf wrote: »

my opinion is that if you have your account set for "minimum payment" and pay by DD then like you I would assume any DD taken would cover, well, the minimum amount required to keep the account in good standing.
surely an error by the company?

assuming of course by "minimum payment" you don't mean a set amount you have chosen yourself which fell below the actual required.

I agree. Minimum payment DD should not result in you going over the limit - but - we're talking Very here...


This one company probably raises more issues on this board than all other companies combined. They are bad news and I can't understand anyone doing business with them. It's almost as though they are out to make deals and arrangements as confusing as possible. It's very easy to be caught out by them.


OP - close the Very account when you can, and make sure they haven't assaulted you with some marker or other at the CRAs - another of their low-down tricks.

fozmcfc

Minimum payments are for the statement balance and would have been keeping the account in good order.

But the last statement probably didn't include the BNPL and backdated interest.

I don't think Very can win here, either they take the minimum payment as per the statement balance and this happens.

Or Very adjust the minimum amount on the assumption that the BNPL and the backdated interest was going to be added to the total, because the buyer wasn't going to pay it off and adjusted the minimum amount to take into account of this.

Of course then people would say, I was going to pay the BNPL off and you shouldn't have upped the minimum payment and left me with no/short of money this month.

It can happen with credit cards as well. When I had an Egg card, because I had money advances on the card, it meant I was going to go over. However before this happened, I got a call/email from them saying check your account urgently. I did and was able to make an additionally payment to keep it under the limit.

JimmyTheWig

On the statement you got before the interest was added, did it say how much (estimated) interest was going to be added on the next statement? Was this estimate accurate?

grumbler

connormill wrote: »

....
I have an account with Shop Direct (very.co.uk) and I haven't made a purchase on it for nearly a year, last August was the last purchase.

I have a direct debit setup to pay just the minimum every month as I have other priority debts to clear first.

Recently a Buy Now Pay Later has reached the end of its interest free period and is now accruing interest on my account.

My most recent statement had it's interest charged way above what the minimum was and now the account is overlimit by £6

Do I have grounds for complaint here? I have always believed that a minimum must always cover the interest and a portion of the capital every month?

I don't get it...
Are the min payments not zero for BNPL?
Regardless, if the accrued interest was added as a lump sum on the most recent statement and put the balance over the limit, why do you think that the previous minimum payments should have predicted and covered this?

As a side note, for a person with "other priority debts to clear first" it's crazy to pay 40%+ APR. How much do your other debts cost if they have 'priority' over 40%?

fozmcfc

grumbler wrote: »

I don't get it...

As a side note, for a person with "other priority debts to clear first" it's crazy to pay 40%+ APR. How much do your other debts cost if they have 'priority' over 40%?

Maybe I'm make a big assumption here, but I'd wager, a lot of people with these high APR accounts, see it as an easy way to get everything they don't really need and on credit, where it's not available elsewhere to them, because they don't have a great credit rating.

I know 3 or 4 people myself just like that, who say oh look I've got this and that and I don't have to pay for 12 months. Of course they don't save any money and then when the 12 months are up, they have no money to pay things off.

To quote Denise out of The Royle Family, when asked about how much her £200 + leather jacket cost. "It was nothing, it was out of a catalogue"