Advice for newbie

clay23

Hi Mattb78

I am in a similar position but I am in debt to the tune of £57,000, the biggest are my credit cards I have 6 of them. One thing i did with all of them to start with was send them a letter to explain how i couldn't meet the repayments and offering them an amount which i could afford e.g £1.00 per month, this letter along with a budget planner with all my outgoings/income. The letter can be found on the National Debtline website. Two out of 6 agreed to a 6 months at £1.00 a month, that was Mint and Capital One, MBNA agreed to £84.00, Barlaycard £63.00 and Littlewoods £36.00 a month. Not only that in the letter you can ask them to freeze your interest and cancel any insurance too so at least you start to pay off money everymonth. There are follow on letters too incase the first one doesn't work. Have a look at the National Debt line website it is really informative and good luck.

lundun

I'm new to the site.
1) How do I start my own thread/ask a question.

My question is as follows:

I was recently in Canada for New Year's where I bought a TV on my GBP credit card on Dec. 20. The price was CAD798 and so my credit card charged me GBP414.56 (which included a GBP11.09 commission charge). The exchange rate on that day was 1.978.
On the 28th of Dec. I returned the TV, and am now shocked to see that I was only refunded GBP397.12 (which included a GBP11.23 commission charge). Exchange rate was 1.95.

Am I crazy or does somehting seem a bit weird about this. Can they still claim commission charges even if I returned the item?

Thanks

poorandindenial

lundun wrote: »

I'm new to the site.
1) How do I start my own thread/ask a question.

There is a blue thingy at the top left of the forum listing that says 'new thread'.

They can charge commission on selling as well as buying currency and when they buy currency it is normally at a less favourable rate than they sell it (they are still exchanging cash whichever direction it is changing in). If you give them a ring you might be able to get them to waive one of the fees, especially if they normally would do no commisison buy back if you bought currency from them but if they did I think it would be a goodwill gesture rather than something that they have to do.

Good luck.

EDIT: you might want to post this on the credit card forum for a definitive answer