Virgin Card - Fee to transfer AWAY

egroeg1980

Hello all,

I have a Virgin Money card which I subscribed to in early 2017 transferring a balance onto the card.

It's now nearing it's promo expiry in October and after simply paying a set fee off for 20 odd months, I understand I am charged an BALANCE TRANSFER FEE AWAY.

I'm not one to quibble but given I've got a bit of time before the card expires, I just wanted to ask the forum if this is normal. I dont remember that being in the T&Cs and I've not broken the promo terms (to my knowledge) since opening the card. I'd have expected to remember that when reading the terms in 2017.

Anyone else seen this and do I have a leg to stand on when transferring away?

Thanks in advance.

madvicker

A balance transfer is a transfer away from one card into another - you cannot be charged by the card the balance is going into, only by the card that the balance is being transferred from. However there are some cards that offer balance transfers with 0 fees.

chattychappy

It might be terminolgy getting confused.

Because we are talking about DEBT, ie a negative balance, money moves in the opposite direction to a balance transfer.

So if you are running a balance, you can get a new card and balance transfer to the new card. This means the new card sends money to the old card. The new card will charge you fee. The old card receives money in pretty the same way as it would if you were paying it off in the normal way. The old card won't charge for that.

No doubt your Virgin card talks about balance transfer fees. But if you transfer the Virgin balance to another card, it will be the other card that charges, not Virgin. You will initiate such a transfer from the new card, not Virgin.

egroeg1980

Hmmm, yep - I'm quite familiar with the 'conventional' process here and how a BT fee is applied on the NEW card with the incoming balance. I myself was a bit confused as to why there would be a fee when you transfer away (admin fee, handling fee - call it what you will).

Alas, I called VM given both your responses ChattyChappy & MadVicker - the lady I just spoken to at Virgin Money concurred that there is NO fee when paying my balance in full or making a sideways transfer to another provider.

So confused as to how I (or VM) came to that conclusion, but lest to say, I dont need to worry about it now.

Thanks for your comments
George.