MBNA - should they behave like this?

annemarie.armour

Hi, I'm after some advice about my MBNA credit card. I make a payment every month of well over the minimum, usually in the first few days of the month.

I made a payment on the 4th December which showed up on the statement for December.
Then I made another payment on 27th December.
When I received December's statement in early January, the payment for 27th December did not show on it. So I thought that payment would go onto the next statement (Jan) and would count as my payment for that month.
(The cut-off date for paying each month varies, but is about the 18th to the 22nd of the month.)
When I received January's statement, it did show the 27th December payment, but it also said I had not paid in January, and charged me a £12 late payment fee. It also said I had to pay two minimum payments, one for January (as the payment made on the 27th was not counted) as well as the expected one for February.
I phoned to complain. The advisor told me that there is a period between the payment cut-off date (varies, 18th to 22nd of the month) and the statement date (varies, about 25 to 27th) in which a payment made does not count as the minimum payment for either month.
I complained and they refunded my late payment fee. They also told me that the demand for the extra payment would be removed from my account. However that hasn't happened.
I phoned again and the advisor assured me that the demand for extra payment would be removed, it would just take a few days. However it still has not been removed.

Does it seem right to you that there should be a period of a few days when a payment made is not counted as the minimum payment for either the month before or the month after?

YorkshireBoy

annemarie.armour wrote: »

Does it seem right to you that there should be a period of a few days when a payment made is not counted as the minimum payment for either the month before or the month after?

It does to me, yes. I'm sure that's not what you wanted to hear though!

It's very simple really. You get a statement which tells you how much to pay and by when. Then you get another one the next month. If you make a payment in 'no man's land' it just acts to reduce the balance on which the following month's payment is calculated.

haras_nosirrah

This comes up a lot. The best thing to do is put minimum payment on direct debit and then voluntarily overpay the rest

forgotmyname

You will have a statement date and a payby date which on my card is approx 20 days later.

You need to pay between those 2 dates unless the balance is zero.

annemarie.armour

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

It does to me, yes. I'm sure that's not what you wanted to hear though!

It's very simple really. You get a statement which tells you how much to pay and by when. Then you get another one the next month. If you make a payment in 'no man's land' it just acts to reduce the balance on which the following month's payment is calculated.

Thanks. It must be the norm because it's being going on for years. It just seems wrong to me.

It is normally quite easy to remember when to pay when you have a balance that you are paying off a bit every month. However, I have been caught out by this in the past when I was only using the credit card occasionally. I got paid on the 24th of the month, paid off nearly all of the balance (minus a quid or two as I wasn't sure of the exact amount) then assumed I was ok for the following month.

What's really irritating me is the lies told to me by 2 advisors in succession, that the payment on 27th December would now be counted for January.

chattychappy

This is a typical pattern.

Something goes wrong (doesn't matter whose fault it is) and then the phone operator says something that isn't true (whether a deliberately lie to get someone off the phone, not knowing their own procedures, or misunderstanding the caller).

Your question was "should they behave like this?". Well, the rules have always been clear. You get a statement - the minimum payment is calculated, and you have a period of time by which to pay. You agree to check the statements.

So, if this doesn't fit with your "behaviour", then don't take out a credit card with MBNA! CCs can't anticipate the wide variety of ways in which people would prefer to manage their finances. Incidentally, some cards give you longer to pay. In the case of Barclaycard, I get pretty much a full month, so the "no man's land" is little more than a day or so.

There is no excuse for misinformation on the phone. I wonder if there was a misunderstanding about what the "demand for extra payment" was. I think I would take a pragmatic view at this point. They did refund you the charges from before. I would now just pay what was demanded as per the latest statement by the due date on that statement. The risk if you don't is you get a report to the CRA and further charges. Whilst it might be possible to unwind these, I'm sure you've got more important battles to fight.

annemarie.armour

It's paid now, as chattychappy says, I've got more important things to do.

I don't think the operator decided on her own to tell me they would remove the demand for immediate payment. She showed great interest when I told her I was about to pay off a large sum in the next day or two, then went away and talked to a manager. Then she came back and told me that the demand would be removed, but it would take a few days to show up on the system. Had I made the overpayment in the next couple of days, I would not have noticed that they didn't remove the demand, because it would have been wiped out anyway.

It's a trap for the customer to fall into.

chattychappy

In the past, MBNA would change the statement date on request, perhaps they still do.

This can be useful if the "payment due" date is particularly inconvenient.