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

takman

Luigi23 wrote: »

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

If these people don't bother reading the terms and conditions why do you think they will be reading a thread on this forum. They all get a copy of their terms and conditions and they don't get a copy of this so it's less likely they will read this.

Personally if I had to pick up an elderly relative who had difficulty walking from hospital I would have asked a staff member to bring her down in a wheelchair and wait by the door. Quickly got my car drove up to the poor up point carefully helped her into the car and off we went (this is something I know other people have done). Alternatively I would have taken someone with me to wait with her while I went to get the car or vise versa.
This is all pretty irrelevant but the moral of the story is to plan ahead to avoid a fine.

As a final point if someone is good with money they wouldn't be getting so close to the limit that they could go over it.

bearcat16

**Are there any avenues I could/should pursue in terms of complaining?**

Complaining about what exactly? That, shock horror, the card company abided by its stated terms?

Sure complain about that.

dld2s

" research shows that 97% of people do not read adequately the terms of conditions of online contracts"

I'm probably one of the 97% although I did know that if a payment is missing/late and also if you go over the limit you can lose the promotional rate, but fair do's to OP for warning others who did not.

I know it's different circumstances but I have had several occasions where Direct Debits weren't set up properly and payments ended up late/missing (one time my error, other times my bank/cc provider errors) I called the CC companies involved and they re-instated the promo balance and refunded the charges so I am surprised at the stance taken by OP's CC provider as I have found CC providers understand that the odd blip happens.

Maybe Virgin CC are less understanding than others?

EDIT: Forgot to Add, OP I don't see how you could make a complaint, but I don't think there would be any harm in sending Virgin your experience and some suggestions, like giving folk the option of imposing a strict limit where they can't go over, hence stopping them losing their promo rate, who knows if enough folk have been caught out and shown dissatisfaction it may cause them to look at their policy, you never know?

bengal-stripe

dld2s wrote: »

I am surprised at the stance taken by OP's CC provider as I have found CC providers understand that the odd blip happens.

Maybe Virgin CC are less understanding than others?

Maybe the OP was more aggressive then others and demanded forcefully his 0% to be reinstated: after all, it was the fault of the CC not stopping him exceeding the limit by quite a large amount.

Softly, softly catchee monkey!

SuperAllyB

I do have some sympathy for the OP but I can see why Virgin would regard £170 as more than just a blip.

chattychappy

People like to "go on" about reading T+Cs, saying that just because something is in the T+Cs, it's your fault when you get caught out.

Consumer credit is highly regulated. Just because something is in the T+Cs, doesn't make it enforceable. If it were, there wouldn't be the PPI debacle and we'd all be paying £25/30 for a missed payment rather than £12.

Lenders are meant to behave fairly - and that goes beyond simply sticking to the T+Cs. "Gotcha" situations are unfair, in my view including removing promo deals, particularly where there is an upfront fee. Other remedies - levying the usual £12, or freezing the account seem more fair. Penalties are meant to reflect the cost of the breach to the injured party. Removing promos appears to me to be a disguised form of illegal penalty. It is part of the business model - promos are a loss leader, but you can make the profit back when people mess up or overrun the end of the promo. (No problems with the latter.)

Whether you agree with me or not, I suspect the days of this kind of behaviour are numbered. At least one lender (Nationwide, I think) have removed this remedy from their promo offers and many will negotiate on the phone.

dld2s

SuperAllyB wrote: »

I do have some sympathy for the OP but I can see why Virgin would regard £170 as more than just a blip.

I agrees, I also have sympathy for the OP, but I don't think that's what they are looking for? the blip i had when I messed up the DD was a £200 payment, but after speaking to CCC they saw that it was a genuine error on my part, and as I said re-instated promo and paid me back charges (or maybe they didn't and just did it for customer goodwill ?) so i'm not sure the amount matters?

I see some folk jumping on the OP's mention of dictionary and the meaning from dictionary's folk can take the meaning differently as the OP has done, they thought limit meant they could not and would not be allowed to go over the limit set by CC, they were wrong in this case and put on a post mainly to warn other folk who thought the same (I gotta be honest many years ago with my first credit card I thought the same, told ya, i'm one of the 97% ) I'm with the OP and do think there should be a option where the CCC doesn't let you go over your Limit.

and just to quote another dictionary on "limit"

Cambridge dictionary on "Limit" meaning: the greatest amount, number, or level of something that is either possible or allowed

ON T&C's funnily enough I have just this morning received a "change to my T&C's" with one of my CC, it's consists of 7 pages and a booklet of 16 pages which is difficult to read even with glasses as the writing is so small, will I read it all? probably not.

chattychappy

dld2s wrote: »

ON T&C's funnily enough I have just this morning received a "change to my T&C's" with one of my CC, it's consists of 7 pages and a booklet of 16 pages which is difficult to read even with glasses as the writing is so small, will I read it all? probably not.

I used to work for a city law firm. The senior partner signed up to have some building work done. He fell out with the builder who ended up suing him. He was rather taken aback that a humble builder had the audacity to sue a top city lawyer merely over a petty bill....

In court, the "humble builder" told the judge that he had some T+Cs which the lawyer agreed to. The judge asked the lawyer "did you read these T+Cs?". The lawyer replied "of course I didn't, I only read contracts if somebody pays me to".

All very funny, but the judge didn't laugh at all. Judgment for the the claimant. Despite it being small claim, the judge gave the builder extra costs and, looking at the lawyer, said "now you're not going to appeal, are you?". He didn't. Builder couldn't believe his luck.

Luigi23

A very interesting series of responses to this issue. Some interesting comparisons, too. Interestingly, I love the comparison of limits on CCs to speed on a road. It is a great illustration. The challenge with jloko's original issue is that the client is not in control of the payment mechanisms from which the subsequent dramatic charges are made.
Speeding fines are much criticised but there are several important lessons we can take from them. Firstly, there is very clear legislation on indicating speed limits, consistently displayed and used; secondly, the driver has full control of their accelerator pedal rather than the police officer controlling the fine (it is the CC company who processes automated payments on balances and the resultant clearance of minimum or total payment, not the account holder); thirdly, when it comes to a fine it is administered via fixed penalty unless extreme, not as a proportion of a previously unmeasurable amount (ie the balance of the account). Fortunately, this practice is now very much on the decline and rightly so; the misuse of T&Cs to trap people disproportionately is unfair. Other commentators are entirely right...to penalise people for exceeding limits or breaking terms is necessary and proper and also when the end of a 0% or entry-rate interest offer expires as these are all clear indicators. Uncontrolled and unpredictable penalties are not needed in order to make offer-based credit a viable and responsible source of lending for both customer and bank.

[Deleted User]

Thanks for resurrecting a 5 month old post with nonsense