Egg Policy Change ?

ashbart

Quite a few people on here are missing the point. Others have got it spot on.

We (those who have had their cards cancelled) are not upset because our accounts have been cancelled, we are upset at how we are being portrayed in the media. Egg have made it VERY CLEAR that accounts being closed are those of high risk, with credit ratings that have deteriorated since openeing their accounts.

The vast majority states this is not the case. If Egg had been honest and said they were closing the accounts that were not highly profitable, it would have been different - it certainly wouldn't have bothered me. The fact that I, along with thousands of others, am being portrayed as high risk is infuriating and has caused unnecessary worry among many.

It will be interesting to see what Egg will come up with, if anything, on Monday.

trisontana

It's like a pub landlord telling a customer they are barred because they are a trouble-maker, when the truth is that this customer only comes in once a week, buys a half a pint of bitter and then sits there all night without buying another drink. Thus not making any money for the pub.

Niksan

Just out of interest are there any other vendors that offer something similar to egg money ?

spotofbother_2

Nomad25 wrote: »

Maybe the "risky" customers should sue Egg for defamation of character!?

Funnily enough this is one idea :idea: which popped into my head in the wee small hours whilst dosing the tail end of a migraine with enough drugs to kill a hippo.
Actually, maybe Egg-stress caused the migraine attack (I was pretty furious!) and I should sue them for that too;)
However, I'm quite sure I'll be well enough to cancel their card and post it back to them first thing tomorrow with a lovely letter!:rotfl:

UK007BullDog

Cannot find the original post from ObeOne.

One point that ObeOne is right on is the risk factor that if you have lots of cards with high limits that you could over-max yourself and then have trouble paying it back.

However if someone has lots of cards with no balances on them is probably in my eyes a good financial planner as they have control over their spending.

In 2006 when I first came here I read up about the credit malarkey and with my own professional knowledge came to the conclusion to close ALL of my cards I don't use except for one which I use as my basis card but also because I had the card for over 20 years and it was my first plus it has the highest limit.

I noticed being a rate tart that each time I applied for new 0% cards that the limits went lower and lower and instead of being able to transfer to one card I had to do two or even 3 transfers. At times I used the offers from existing cards to transfer stuff back and to top up from other cards coming to an end.

Do to my own stupidity and stress related I forgot to pay on time on one of my 0% cards around Christmas. I got hit by a £12 late charge and the interest I am paying is more plus the fee than the payment was. I lost my 0% for another year. I applied last night for a new card and got accepted right away. So will be shifting the debt.

The moral of the Egg fiasco (I don't have one but looked in the forums first to gauge which card would be best to shift to) is to pay all the debts on the cards a lot quicker than I had planned to. I came across these postings and decided not to go for an Egg card. It is too risky for me LOL. Having said that I don't use CC's at all just for shifting debt and trying to repay it ASAP.

Anyway I digressed somewhat. So what I did 2 years ago was to cancel all my cards I no longer need by either transferring lots of little outstanding debts to make it a more solid sum or by paying off the little stuff and closing them down in writing by REGISTERED mail. They tend to ignore requests over the phone or letters sent or choose to "misunderstand" my requests. So I have become quite good at how they operate and some of the Tactics to hold on to a "credit" amount for months stating that there could still be outstanding credit card transactions coming in. Even though they can see the card never got activated as it went straight into the bin cut up, no purchases were ever made. So you have to keep the account in a "zero" state for 3 months. I write to them and tell them to close it. Sometimes they come back with a counter offer. Some are good but most are a lot of tosh.

So what happened when about a dozen CC accounts were closed? My excellent credit rating did not change, however when applying for a balance transfer it got approved right there and then plus I get more than I actually need.

ALL YOU FOLKS WHO RUSHED TO THE EXPERIAN AND CO TO CHECK OUT YOUR CREDIT FILES AND WHO HAD TO PAY FOR THE PRIVILEGE SHOULD COMPLAIN TO EGG AND ASK FOR THE MONEY BACK, IF YOU HAVE A PERFECT CREDIT RECORD. Why should you have to cough up the cost of checking your credit file because of the falsely worded letter scaring you into checking your credit file? If you were able to check for free then you are lucky. But most of us here have checked our files some time before and would not be able to use the free report. So claim it back! Or at least try.

American Banks are in trouble. All the banks are somehow linked together with the sub-prime crises in the US. Someone said that US banks have better customer care. I do not see that. I have relatives in the US who are suffering as they jumped on the bandwagon and bought property without planning ahead nor understanding the consequences of interest rates going up when the deal ends. Anyone wanting a 3 bed condo in Florida for $60K which last year before the "crash" was $200K? My distant relative has 3 of those for sale. Sadly they did not ask me for advice but their original mortgage interest was 1.5% and fixed for a long period and now out of it they are at around 35% tied in which is total madness. We are lucky to be regulated and the US should copy us and regulate their financial markets who deal with the customer coming in from the street. Funny how none of the presidential candidates have yet spoken candidly how they will tackle the credit crisis.

If i was an egg customer I would take my savings out of spite and move. They are in trouble and even if some customers are not profitable with good credit record they should not be LIED to. The FSA has "Treating Customers Fairly" on their radar. EGG is not, so I expect a strong reprimand from the FSA and maybe even a fine, just to remind Citibank that we are not in the wild wild west but in the UK with a regulated market where cowboy scenes are frowned upon.

I wonder what Citi is doing in other countries where they have CC services. Are there also "egg" shells being cracked?

fitorbust

I have an Egg card that has been unused for a couple of years but no letter as yet.
I had a look at Egg money yesterday and it seems that my APR on the card is 10.9% which seems quite good. I don't really use CCs now and am busy paying off my last balance transfer to GE money at 0% over the next 8 months, but may use this card (if I still have it!) as one that I can pay off each month.
In summary.... I am one of the people that I would have thought Egg would have got rid of (i.e. I don't make them any money), but so far haven't had the letter - let's see what Monday's post brings.

Nomad25

Have just lifted this off Egg's company info page ..... "Egg's values Our core values at Egg are honesty, integrity and respect for people. We aspire to be simple, transparent, mutually beneficial, empathetic, liberating and fresh and modern. These values are very important to us and are right at the heart of everything we do.We treat our customers fairly and as we'd like to be treated ourselves." Well that's all right then!

BritBrat

If i was an egg customer I would take my savings out of spite and move. They are in trouble and even if some customers are not profitable with good credit record they should not be LIED to. The FSA has "Treating Customers Fairly" on their radar. EGG is not, so I expect a strong reprimand from the FSA and maybe even a fine, just to remind Citibank that we are not in the wild wild west but in the UK with a regulated market where cowboy scenes are frowned upon.

I disagree, if they have lied about a customers credit status they should lose the licence to provide credit, that would make any other credit card company or bank think twice about branding a customer as a bad risk when they are not.

If they lie about one thing how can they be trusted to look after peoples money.

Grade_A_Reject

Just a thought but what would happen if all those affected by these closures were to set up new Continuous Payment Authorities on their cards before the 35 day deadline expired?

As far as I know a CPI can't be cancelled by the card issuer and can only be cancelled by the cardholder cancelling the agreement with the organisation that collects from the card. http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=256

Egg could therefore stop future use of the cards for normal purposes but would still need to maintain the account.

I've not had the letter from Egg but will be checking the post on Monday! I fall into the pay the whole balance every month category so don't create much of an income for them.

I've withdrawn the £1800 I had in my Egg ISA not through any fears of Egg's liquidity but just a counter-strike for their portrayal of the reasons for cancelling some accounts. I was thinking of moving to the safer NS&I ISA in April anyway so will just pay the withdrawn cash off my mortgage.

Clariman

Grade_A_Reject wrote: »

Just a thought but what would happen if all those affected by these closures were to set up new Continuous Payment Authorities on their cards before the 35 day deadline expired?...
Egg could therefore stop future use of the cards for normal purposes but would still need to maintain the account.

You would need to be very careful about doing that. IMHO Egg may honour the charges but would also charge you fees for going about your £0 credit limit. Read the terms and conditions of your account and the letter they have sent very, very carefully before contemplating doing anything like that.

Clariman