Virgin Credit removed promotional rate without a warning - learn from my misfortune!

boo_star

T-G-C wrote: »

The provider accommodates both digital and conventional methods of checking your account balance, this is sufficient enough to identify an overlimit occurrence.

A limit is not a restriction. You, as the account holder, as another poster had said above, can make the decision to attempt, but not automatically expect, a transaction to authorize, where it would exceed the available balance. This could be in an emergency situation or simply at the counter in a supermarket. Would you prefer the embarrassment of leaving the till unpaid or allow the provider to approve and leave the queue with your pride intact?

I once had this argument used against me when asking for a relatively small amount of charges back from Barclays, who allowed my seldomly used account to go into overdraft.

My answers were.

A). Yes, I'd prefer it was unpaid
. The transaction was online (which they knew) so there was no possibility of me being embarrassed "in a retail outlet" but even if it was in a retail outlet I wouldn't mind.

I'd imagine most people would rather have their cards declined than paying potentially hundreds of pounds in interest/charges as a result of allowing it.

Hell, cards get declined all the time due to PoS, network or bank outages and the like. We all manage to soldier on with life. Imagine that.

Ben8282

Before purchasing your 'gig tickets' you could have checked the current balance and available credit online quite easily. You chose not to.
Additionally, we are not talking about going over the limit by a few pounds. We are talking about going over the limit by £170. There is a difference.
Although I feel sorry for what has happened it really is your own fault.

agrinnall

jsloko wrote: »

Anyway, whilst I understand all the arguments here I really think it should be an option to choose not to be able to go over the limit.
I consider myself relatively on top of my finances and I still let that happen.

There is an option, to be more on top of your finances than you actually are, because it's pretty clear it's not good enough at the moment. The easy way may be to set yourself a lower limit than the card limit, and once you reach that only make further purchases if you are absolutely certain it won't take you over the card limit.

jsloko

agrinnall wrote: »

There is an option, to be more on top of your finances than you actually are, because it's pretty clear it's not good enough at the moment. The easy way may be to set yourself a lower limit than the card limit, and once you reach that only make further purchases if you are absolutely certain it won't take you over the card limit.

Thanks but I think you've missed my point and frankly aren't adding much. The issue was being unaware of the fact I can go over a limit and that this would penalise me. Had I known these I would've been a lot more careful being so close to my limit!
And yes, they seem obvious to you and many others here but once again the 20% of people losing their promotional rates do show that a good portion of people are like me which is why I wrote this post.

[Deleted User]

"Had I known these I would've been a lot more careful being so close to my limit!"

Does this not prove that you are not on top of your finances then, as pointed out above?

Timberflake1983

jsloko wrote: »

but once again the 20% of people losing their promotional rates do show that a good portion of people are like me which is why I wrote this post.

That also shows that 80% of people are responsible enough to stay within their limits to keep their promotional rate.

I think you need to ask yourself, who's primarily responsible for monitoring your finances, you or the card provider?

takman

jsloko wrote: »

Thanks but I think you've missed my point and frankly aren't adding much. The issue was being unaware of the fact I can go over a limit and that this would penalise me. Had I known these I would've been a lot more careful being so close to my limit!
And yes, they seem obvious to you and many others here but once again the 20% of people losing their promotional rates do show that a good portion of people are like me which is why I wrote this post.

But the reason you didn't know was because you didn't read the documentation provided by your credit card company which clearly states you will loose your promotional rate if you go over your limit and also what fees you will have to pay if you did this.

If people don't read the documentation they are given it's not the card companies fault.

You also obviously haven't read a dictionary either before making this statement:

jsloko wrote: »

So lesson learned - YOU CAN GO OVER YOUR LIMIT WITH VIRGIN CREDIT - IT'S NOT REALLY A "LIMIT" IN THE DICTIONARY SENSE OF THE WORD

Jasonh2015

it says very clearly on their website

"If we do not receive the minimum payment when it is due or you go over your credit limit, we will withdraw the promotional rate with effect from the start of that statement period"

just before you pick your card design.

redux

I had a recent near miss with a different card.

A payment standing order was set by me 2 days before the due date. This recently coincided with a Saturday before a May bank holiday Monday, and the payment didn't arrive until Tuesday, one day late.

I noticed the late fee on the statement, phoned up and said I realised the mistake and had moved the standing order to two days earlier. They refunded the late fee, and checked whether this would damage the 0% offer - no, 2 days informal leeway.

So that's another point to be careful about.

Luigi23

There was me thinking jsloko posted to warn people about what appears to be a disproportionate response to exceeding a limit. As far as I can tell, jsloko accepts there was an error, but feels that not being informed and the card operator using 'offer removal', rather than a unit fee is likely to put some people at risk. I can't see that this is anything other than true.
You can check your account daily and it would not prevent a shift from 0% to 20% happening without warning, possibly resulting in a penalty in excess of £100.
Jsloko is to be praised for this post. It may well be that many who have replied with self righteous indignation would not have made this error. Well done! This post was not for you...it was for those who might be caught out; the 97% of people who, research shows, do not fully check terms and conditions.
To those who truly believe that they want to live purely in a contractual terms and conditions society, rather than one based on proportionate response to mistakes, consider my mother leaving hospital under sedation last month. I opted to drive her, instead of taking her entitlement to free NHS transport to support her. I paid for three hours of parking and was advised after two hours to take my car to the 30 minute parking area by the ward staff, as my mother was out of her operation. She was not to be left as she was sedated and the feedback and her accompanied walk took us 34 minutes. The £70 fine we received was, of course, contractually entirely justified as the parking attendant told my mother, in her eighties, sedated and unable to walk properly that we had broken the terms and conditions. He was, of course, right. Of course, I had paid for more than the total time of my parking, but needed to move the car to limit the walk. My mother has still not got over the event and daily tries to pay me the money. We could not have gone quicker, she was not allowed to be left unaccompanied, the staff believed she would be ready earlier and I had done all reasonably possible to get her from the ward to the car in under 30 minutes. The contract was broken...the fine was applied...so all happy there then? Somewhere there are smug people reading this post who are now clapping their hands with glee. These are the three percent of people who would have hurled their sedated 80 year old mother from the top floor of the hospital building, thus saving four minutes and meeting their contractual duty with the car parking. One could, of course, substitute 80 year old mother with 'pregnant wife', 'disabled child' or similar, because contract and T&C are all that matters.
These two situations-the credit card fees and the hospital fine-are similar. Just because something is part of a set of T&Cs doesn't mean it can always be adhered to by an account holder or, for that matter, patient. Neither does it mean that someone who exceeds a limit, be it four minutes of parking, or a few pounds of credit is irresponsible or lacks control. This type of response to unavoidably exceeding a limit is symptomatic of a shift in the way that people treat each other, especially large profit-making companies.
Don't worry jloko, your post is appreciated by everyone who is less than perfect. As I said, research shows that 97% of people do not read adequately the terms of conditions of online contracts, which is what many of these 0% cards are, so your post will be useful to most people. You just happened to get lots of replies from the 3% of people who do. Statistically, of course, this isn't likely. Still, never mind, one of the perfect people who replied might have an imperfect mother, father, son, daughter or even spouse who are given disproportionate penalties because of a minor issue.
Jloko seems to me highly responsible, which is why the original post was made, responsible enough to try to prevent others from falling into the same trap. Jloko is also good with money...otherwise jloko would not have applied for, or been eligible for, a 0% card. As a result of this post, fewer people will make this mistake. Well done:T:T