Residual Interest

peaty_mcbog

Hi I have a natwest mastercard, been with them for ~30 years. On this months statement & despite paying the previous month off in full I received an interest charge, having not seen this type of charge before I phoned natwest who said it was a residual interest charge from the previous 2 months where I hadnt paid off the balance in full. I said I had never received this type of charge in all the years I had been with them, the shirty reply was "Ive worked here for the last year and weve always made a residual interest charge and Im not taking it off". Has anyone experiened this residual interest charge and has anyone managed to get them to take it off?
Any feedback would be appreciated Thanks

YorkshireBoy

You need to pay two consecutive statements in full to stop 'residual' interest. The alternative is to overpay the first statement slightly and create a small positive balance.

It's a pretty standard condition in most (all?) credit agreements.

saversarn

Funnily enough I have had credit cards for 20 years and never been charged interest the month after I have paid of the balance.... until this month when I heard the same crock from Virgin!!
To add insult to injury even though I had paid off the balance early in the month and their was a nil balance they still tried to collect the direct debit which I had cancelled with the bank, and as it was not paid they charges me £12.:mad: They did refund that as a goodwill jesture!!!! Whoopee doo...

YorkshireBoy

saversarn wrote: »

To add insult to injury even though I had paid off the balance early in the month and their was a nil balance they still tried to collect the direct debit which I had cancelled with the bank...

You had a contract, in the form of a direct debit instruction (DDI), with MBNA. The DDI makes, amongst others, two key requests of you. To paraphrase...

1. If you cancel your direct debit with your bank, please send us a copy of the request, and

2. We will take payment based on your statemented balance. If you wish to cancel this arrangement, you must notify us within 7 working days of the payment due date.

It would appear you did neither of the above, so that's why they attempted to take the payment.

saversarn

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

It would appear you did neither of the above, so that's why they attempted to take the payment.

I did actually write to them, so they have now refunded the money:D:D

riad_2

Unlike late fees and charges... it's not within most card company's policies to be allowed to refund residual interest... bcos it is a valid interest charge (worked out by charging interest daily until the balance is paid off in full).

So no huffing and puffing in the world, nor even threatening to close your account (I believe the way interest is worked out, including residual interest, is now standard across all cards anyways so ur not benfitting at all by closing!), will really result in you getting it refunded.

The only exception to this really is if u are normally a full payer, and your full payment came in a couple of days late last month... and u got last month's interest and this month's residual... they may refund both as a one off since you normally pay in full.

But if you are a regular part payer and have now paid off the balance in full, and want the residual you've been charged after clearing your balance to be refunded... they won't do it as it is a valid charge.

saversarn

I didn't get huffy or puffy, I wrote a nice letter and I am usually a good customer, but then virgin are always accomodating in my experience. I still think the whole residual interest thing is a crock. But then I have not intentionaly left a balance on my card for years. And this seems to be new since the last time, anyone any idea when it was introduced?