John Lewis Credit Card

Boogie1980

I had a shock today with my John Lewis credit card small print.
I'm sure some people will know about this but perhaps it will be a heads up for others.
Today I received my monthly statement and bill. I always pay my credit card bill in full within the payment period. When I looked at this bill it had a £167.05 interest fee added on. The previous months bill of £10,319 had been paid inside the time limit so I didn't have a clue why the charge. I checked my figures because the amount had been paid from different accounts and at different times. It turned out that I had been £80 short in the payment. When I phoned John Lewis this was confirmed. They said that they would deduct the interest charge from the bill as goodwill. I asked why so much interest on a very small amount and the answer shocked me. Even if you are 1p short of paying the total amount, they charge you interest on the whole bill even though you have paid nearly all of it.
In future I'll make double sure that the amounts all add up correctly.

Olinda99

yes just one of the first things you need to know is that you don't get charged interest if you pay off the statement balance IN FULL by the date stated 

if you don't pay in full you get charged on everything from the date of purchase

you were lucky to get the good will refund

Mark_d

Boogie1980 said:

I had a shock today with my John Lewis credit card small print.
I'm sure some people will know about this but perhaps it will be a heads up for others.
Today I received my monthly statement and bill. I always pay my credit card bill in full within the payment period. When I looked at this bill it had a £167.05 interest fee added on. The previous months bill of £10,319 had been paid inside the time limit so I didn't have a clue why the charge. I checked my figures because the amount had been paid from different accounts and at different times. It turned out that I had been £80 short in the payment. When I phoned John Lewis this was confirmed. They said that they would deduct the interest charge from the bill as goodwill. I asked why so much interest on a very small amount and the answer shocked me. Even if you are 1p short of paying the total amount, they charge you interest on the whole bill even though you have paid nearly all of it.
In future I'll make double sure that the amounts all add up correctly.

This is the way things operate for the vast majority of credit cards.  If you don't want to end up in the situation again them my advice is to set up a direct debit to pay the full statement balance every month.

CliveOfIndia

That's how all credit cards work.  Interest starts to accrue on a daily basis for every transaction.  If you pay in full, then the accrued interest is waived (cash advances and cash-like transactions excepted).  But pay 1 penny less than the full statement balance and all the accrued interest becomes payable.

This applies to all credit cards, and always has done.  It's not peculiar to John Lewis.

I know the Terms and Conditions for financial products don't exactly make for riveting bed-time reading, but it really is so important to understand what you're agreeing to whenever you sign any contract - arguably even more so for financial products.

DullGreyGuy

Boogie1980 said:

I had a shock today with my John Lewis credit card small print.
I'm sure some people will know about this but perhaps it will be a heads up for others.
Today I received my monthly statement and bill. I always pay my credit card bill in full within the payment period. When I looked at this bill it had a £167.05 interest fee added on. The previous months bill of £10,319 had been paid inside the time limit so I didn't have a clue why the charge. I checked my figures because the amount had been paid from different accounts and at different times. It turned out that I had been £80 short in the payment. When I phoned John Lewis this was confirmed. They said that they would deduct the interest charge from the bill as goodwill. I asked why so much interest on a very small amount and the answer shocked me. Even if you are 1p short of paying the total amount, they charge you interest on the whole bill even though you have paid nearly all of it.
In future I'll make double sure that the amounts all add up correctly.

Thats how credit cards work... rather than mess about with making multiple payments manually (some credit card companies cap the number you can make too), instead have a DD that takes the full amount automatically and then you avoid the risk of an error being made. 

Boogie1980

The only problem with having a direct debit in my case is that the money to pay the bill comes from multiple bank accounts. That would mean transferring these amounts to a central account for the DD to be paid from. That would still leave room for errors to be made.
I didn't think that this would be confined to just a John Lewis credit card, but I wanted all the people that didn't read the 10 pages of small print in full to be aware of it. 

born_again

Boogie1980 said:

The only problem with having a direct debit in my case is that the money to pay the bill comes from multiple bank accounts. That would mean transferring these amounts to a central account for the DD to be paid from. That would still leave room for errors to be made.
I didn't think that this would be confined to just a John Lewis credit card, but I wanted all the people that didn't read the 10 pages of small print in full to be aware of it. 

I think a bigger take on this is to read exactly what the payment amount is, when paying in full by other methods 👍

stambridge

So I don't get caught out I set up a reminder on my phone for just before the payment is due and I put the amount to be paid in it. I find this works very well. 

RGN007

I had a shock last night. I've been using and paying off every month, a John Lewis credit card and as for many others, the old card was transferred to Newday a couple of years ago. 

The shock was technically my own fault because for some stupid reason I only put the last four numbers of my card number so my payment was sent back after around a week.

What was interesting (and earlier comments assume all cards are the same), is that I got charged interest. Well yes you might add...but...

I have a Barclaycard with roughly the same interest and roughly the same balance of £2000 last month. I'm trying to help my disabled daughter escape the Fluid card at 49% apr, owned by Newday to reduce her debt so I wangled a cash transfer 18 months interest free to Barclaycard I wasn't using. 

So last month both Barclaycard and John Lewis Newday were 23% apr and £2000 so here's the crunch...

Barclaycard added £16 interest whilst Newday added £65 !!!
Ok, Newday have refunded two weird £35 ish but my last month balance doesn't match. 

Another really bad thing I've discovered trying to contact Newday is their horrendous button pressing and voice recognition to even speak to anyone.

So I'm getting rid of Newday. They feel "sharp practice" and unethical and I'm sorry John Lewis sunk into such a deceitful and grabbing card company.

WillPS

RGN007 said:

I had a shock last night. I've been using and paying off every month, a John Lewis credit card and as for many others, the old card was transferred to Newday a couple of years ago. 

Not true. The JLFS (HSBC) card ended, and cardholders were invited to apply for a new one with NewDay. Nothing was transferred.

RGN007 said:

Barclaycard added £16 interest whilst Newday added £65 !!!
Ok, Newday have refunded two weird £35 ish but my last month balance doesn't match. 

You were charged interest on a previous balance, probably one that wasn't cleared in time because they didn't receive the payment (probably because you didn't use the correct reference).

The moral of the story is to be super careful to enter correct references for manual payments, and always *always* check they have been registered as received - particularly the first time after setting up the payee.

RGN007 said:

So I'm getting rid of Newday. They feel "sharp practice" and unethical and I'm sorry John Lewis sunk into such a deceitful and grabbing card company.

With the greatest respect, this looks a lot more like user error than a problem their end from my read.

ManyWays

RGN007 said:

I'm trying to help my disabled daughter escape the Fluid card at 49% apr, owned by Newday to reduce her debt so I wangled a cash transfer 18 months interest free to Barclaycard I wasn't using. 

You could suggest your daughter look at affordability complaints if she was given a limit that is too high for her to be able to clear in a reasonable time