Beneficial Credit Card - Unable to contact

creditcardwoes

Hi All,
I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do about a credit card facility I had.

Basically in about the mid 2000's I took out a credit card with Beneficial. I didn't have a huge limit/ balance, maybe £1000-£1500 or so. 
I lost contact with them when they were being sold to HFC / HSBC. Over the last 10-12 years I've been sporadically trying to get in contact with them via HSBC but every time I've tried. i've been given numbers where no-one answers or that don't work. 

Upshot is for the last 10-15 years I've had £27 going out from my bank account to a company I haven't been able to communicate with for a decade. I've received no statements/ balance updates during that time. The credit facility doesn't appear on my credit file.

Given how long this has been going on I can only assume that they must have increased the interest rate from whatever the balance transfer rate was initially, otherwise it would have been paid off long long ago. I've had nothing by way of contact which i would have thought I should of considering the consumer credit act and the persistent debt rules. 

I'm actually a bit concerned about what I might find if I ever do get a hold of them at this point. but I can't just keep paying them (whoever them is) £27 a month for the rest of my life.
To be honest at this stage i must have given them £1000's. Way more than can be justified, and the only thing i'd be happy with is to call it quits. If they still want more money I think I'd want to involve their regulators, 

I don't have any other debt, my credit rating is way above average, and I'm looking to get a mortgage in the next 12 months so while there is a temptation to simply cancel the Direct Debit and see what happens, I'm reluctant to do just in case it damages my credit worthyness

Any suggestions?

[Deleted User]

Beneficial cards ended up with NewDay under the Opus brand.

Are you sure the £27 a month for 15 years is a credit card payment? Seems unlikely for £1k debt.

creditcardwoes

Deleted_User said:

Beneficial cards ended up with NewDay under the Opus brand.

Are you sure the £27 a month for 15 years is a credit card payment? Seems unlikely for £1k debt.

100% - it appears on my Bank Statement as Beneficial Card. I can only assume that the interest rate was increased over the years to match my DDM amount so its effectively an interest only repayment, or I've simply been forgotten about and I'm sending money every month for no reason other than they never cancelled the DD when the balance was paid off.

I thought the unsecured credit card debt moved from Beneficial to HFC which became part of the HSBC group

[Deleted User]

creditcardwoes said:

Deleted_User said:

Beneficial cards ended up with NewDay under the Opus brand.

Are you sure the £27 a month for 15 years is a credit card payment? Seems unlikely for £1k debt.

100% - it appears on my Bank Statement as Beneficial Card. I can only assume that the interest rate was increased over the years to match my DDM amount so its effectively an interest only repayment, or I've simply been forgotten about and I'm sending money every month for no reason other than they never cancelled the DD when the balance was paid off.

I thought the unsecured credit card debt moved from Beneficial to HFC which became part of the HSBC group

Interest rates, even minimum payments, are based on a % of the balance, they wouldn't be a fixed sum of £27 every month - unless you manually set that payment

JamesPeter

creditcardwoes said:

Deleted_User said:

Beneficial cards ended up with NewDay under the Opus brand.

Are you sure the £27 a month for 15 years is a credit card payment? Seems unlikely for £1k debt.

I thought the unsecured credit card debt moved from Beneficial to HFC which became part of the HSBC group

I know it is from wiki, but on the HSBC Finance page:

In October 2007, the Marbles & Beneficial branded credit card portfolios were sold to SAV Credit

SAV Credit being Newday:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NewDay_(company)

It might be worth contacting Newday:

https://www.newday.co.uk/contact-us/company-enquiry/

pbartlett

repayments would not normally be an unchanging amounto so is unlikely to be linked to your card balance.

assuming you havent changed address, the nuclear option would be to camcel the dd and wait for them to contact you asking you why.

creditcardwoes

so quick update. 
I've managed to track this down, These old accounts were transferred to John Lewis Financial Services. Having spoken to their Beneficial Finance team it turns out

The account is 18 Years old, and was originally opened as a balance transfer card, never used aside from the initial balance transfer on opening.

For the last 18 years they've been charging me £27.00 a month. They upped the interest rate without amending the DDM 
I'm paying £25.18 in interest each month, and only 1.82 is going towards clearing a balance of £1340. 

I've asked them to supply a copy of the signed credit agreement. a breakdown showing any and all interest rate increases over the 18 years along with statements.

My immediate reaction / view is they are in breach of the consumer credit act rules on the minimum 1% going to capital repayment and also in breach of the persistent debt rules.

My gut instinct is to demand that they wipe the debt out, and we call it quits. i think that is probably pretty generous on my part since they've had nearly £6000 out of me so far off the back of a £1500 balance transfer

[Deleted User]

Persistent debt rules are very recent (2018 or so), they are not retrospective. Do they have an up to date address for you to send you letters about the debt - I am guessing not given you should have got monthly statements if they were not emailed? Do note, the rules say they should contact you to tell you to put up your payments, they cannot force it and if you are not alerting them about say financial hardship they won't freeze interest,

Upping interest rates is perfectly fine and obviously only paying the minimum (which is your choice, they can only take what is agreed on the DD) will always mean you pay lots of interest.

You can ask (not demand) they cancel the debt but any complaint could fall foul of the 3 and 6 year rules anyway

[Deleted User]

creditcardwoes said:

My immediate reaction / view is they are in breach of the consumer credit act rules on the minimum 1% going to capital repayment and also in breach of the persistent debt rules.

They also won't be in breach of the min payment rules due to the age of your account.

QrizB

creditcardwoes said:

For the last 18 years they've been charging me £27.00 a month. They upped the interest rate without amending the DDM 
I'm paying £25.18 in interest each month, and only 1.82 is going towards clearing a balance of £1340.
I've asked them to supply a copy of the signed credit agreement. a breakdown showing any and all interest rate increases over the 18 years along with statements.
My gut instinct is to demand that they wipe the debt out, and we call it quits. i think that is probably pretty generous on my part since they've had nearly £6000 out of me so far off the back of a £1500 balance transfer

Demanding isn't likely to help.

I'd suggest speaking nicely to them, explaining the situation and see what you can work out. If you can't strike a deal, pay it all off now (or if you can't afford to do that, transfer it to a 0% deal with a different provider).

pbartlett

From their point, they may think you were completely happy with the arrangements, as it is a bit unusual to allow £27 a month for 10 years without knowing what it was for - or maybe there were special circumstances here?