MBNA again, please advise me what to do

ti1980

I phoned up MBNA about 3 weeks ago to ask them what the APR was on my card and was horrified to find out it was 24.9%.

When I phoned up the loyalty department I was told that they could only reduce that APR to 22.9% and that would be at a cost of £25.

Again I was so disgusted at this, I sent a letter (with the kind help of a fellow MSE-er) saying that I would make arrangements to pay off the balance in a couple of months and close the card, but if they had any suitable offers for me to get in touch with me.

They phoned me up today and offered me a balance transfer rate of 4.9% til Dec. The standard APR would still be at 24.9, and they could only reduce this to 22.9 apparently.

I don't have any bargaining power right now as I can't afford to pay off the card for at least two months and can't transfer the balance over to another credit card either so what should I do?

Would I be better off in clearing the card in a couple of months and then saying I want to close the card and hope they offer me a better standard rate. Do you think there is any chance that I could get a better rate for any balance transfer offers than the 4.9 they have offered me?

Any help is always gratefully received.

terriermama

I can commiserate as this exact thing happened to me with MBNA with their extortionate interest rates.

I refused to pay the £25 to reduce the interest rate by 1%, and just bit the bullet till I got a couple new cards. Then I did a BT for full amount to other cards, left MBNA card empty for one statement.

I went back to them and said I wanted to cancel the card (though I still needed it). Late one night, the call centre people in India offered me 6.9%APR plus BT fee. I said I would have to think it over. Next morning I rang and got through to the UK call centre me ready to commit to the 6.9%, but again asked what is the best they can do, and they said 2.9%+fee. I made a third call later that day to Loyalty but they had the 2.9% on their computers and that was a far as I could get. I did however negotiate an increased limit so managed to transfer other debt onto this cheaper rate till Dec.

funkymonkey

i only have the clasic card but i have managed to screw them for three 0% for 6 months - the most recent one was last week. pay it off and ring them - you have more bargening power then!

ti1980

Terriermama - how long ago was it that you managed to get the 2.9%?

I'm thinking that I could possibly pay them off next month, would make things very tight but may be worth it in the end.

I'm not sure if the 4.9% that I was offered is with a fee, if it isn't then that practically makes me 2.9% with a fee doesn't it effectively?

mountainofdebt

glad to see the letter you sent had some limit success.

Why not phone MBNA up and tell them that a BT rate of 4.9% does not address the issues that you have with them....especially in light of the fact that if you were to make a balance transfer @ 4.9% any repayment would go to pay this off first leaving the balance attracting interest at 24.9% untouched. Tell them that if they fail to grasp this point then you can't see any point in keeping the card.

I appreciate that things may be abit tight if you do decide to clear the MBNA card (and then cancel it) but my view would be your credit/income ratio would fall and then you'd be more likely to get a different card with a much more competitive rate.

mummytofour

I totally hate Mbna my dh has one of their cards and the intrest is horrid, plus they took £115 out of my/our bank account (dd payment) 10 days after i had cleared the balance on the card, me thinks they dont know their ar%e from their elbow, sorry not much help am i? exsept to say i dont think that they are the best cc comp out there...
Vxx

ti1980

Mountainofdebt - thank you very much for the letter, I really do appreciate the time you took for that.

I will phone them up tomorrow and see if I can get any better.
Though what they have offered me anyway I would take as its so much better than what I would have had if you and others hadn't given me some great advice.

I can't cancel any of my cards as I have a default on my file due to when I moved house and stupidly completely forgot about a card with a balance on it that I had stopped using. So I can't get any new cards, I just have to try and get the best rates with the ones I already have.

terriermama

hi ti,
i got the BT at 2.9% + BT fee £50 last week. Good luck.

mountainofdebt

Ti

If you decide to do this BT please be aware that any payments you make to your MBNA will REDUCE THE BT BALANCE FIRST and the balance you have at 24.9% will still go on attracting interest at 24.9% until you have paid off the BT balance.

If you can't get MBNA to reduce the rates on your normal balance and you decide to go ahead with making a BT can I suggest something ?

You have a barclaycard.

Why not transfer as much as you can to your Barclaycard and then transfer it back again to MBNA a few days later when it has all gone through (I would check this has happened with MBNA rather than Barclaycard). By doing it that way at least you can get as much as possible at 4.9%. Might also be worth you pushing MBNA to increase your limit to transfer that little bit more @ 4.9%

Also in December (remember to put the date in the rate alert facilty on this site) contact Barclaycard to see what deals they are doing...they are currently offering 6.9% LTOB which is pretty good especially if you are having difficulty getting any better deals.

ti1980

I will try and see what they say.

I would need to get them to up my credit limit for it to be worth it to pay a BT fee of £50 though I think.

ti1980

Well I phoned them up and although I spoke to a very friendly assistant, he said he couldn't budge on the 4.9% and there would be a 2% handling fee as well.

The only thing I did manage to do was to increase my credit limit so that's something I guess.