Avoid M&S More Credit Card

smi32d75

I've just received a letter telling me due to the current state of the economy and a Corporate decision my new APR rate is 22.9 percent ! Along with other rate increase that far exceed other cards i've had. This has gone from the best card to the worst card i've owned.
They have said that introductory rates will remain but they also say that Balance Transfers will always get paid first. therfore i could be paying 22.9 percent on 2000.00 once i've paid off my 1000.00 Balance transfer !

VERY POOR

Bismarck

Di they really say

"due to the current state of the economy" - I thought it was blatant profiteering myself...how can they say it's the economy's fault when interest rates are going down.....oh.... I get it, they're subsidising their losses elsewhere....and charging this rate because they think they'll get away with it.

Phantom_Flan_Flinger

smi32d75 wrote: »

they also say that Balance Transfers will always get paid first.

This is standard across the whole industry, except for Nationwide.

swayze

Phantom_Flan_Flinger wrote: »

This is standard across the whole industry, except for Nationwide.

Very true. Its been like that for ages.

As I just said in a previous email this will be just happening on a number of individual accounts and not everyones.

youknowwho

Yes, that it exactly what they are doing Bismark. they are trying to increase their revenuebecause they lose so much of it to fraud and ppl reclaiming bank charges!!

so ppl who have never been late,missed paymnet are now having higher rates to subsidize the incompetent ppl who can't run a CC properly.

missile

I hate M&S & More card their customer "service" is dreadful.

swayze

missile wrote: »

I hate M&S & More card their customer "service" is dreadful.

A lot depends on who you talk to. Some advisors are a lot better than others. I've had good and bad experiences with the same call centre inc M&S.

Tirian

Bismarck wrote: »

Di they really say

"due to the current state of the economy" - I thought it was blatant profiteering myself...how can they say it's the economy's fault when interest rates are going down.....oh.... I get it, they're subsidising their losses elsewhere....and charging this rate because they think they'll get away with it.

Credit card interest rates bear no relation to the Bank of England base rate, and never have done. The 'current state of the economy' is that banks are having to write off large amounts of bad debts, facing rising insolvencies and can no longer rely on people taking equity from their to bail themselves out of trouble, because house prices are going down (and many people have already eaten away their equity already with 2nd mortgages etc). As such they are desperate to discourage anyone who has got anything but an A+++ credit rating and a secure income from increasing their borrowing.

loveandlight

posted by Tirian
As such they are desperate to discourage anyone who has got anything but an A+++ credit rating and a secure income from increasing their borrowing.

Actually I am one of these people with an excellent rating but it hasn't stopped the M&S More card from writing to me today to tell me they have increased my interest rates to 20.9%. Fortunately my balance is at the promotional rate of 3.9% so I won't be affected unless I use my card which I definitely won't be doing.

Everyone is being affected now rgardless of whether you have excellent credit or not. That's why all those Egg customers had their cards taken off them because they were good payers so Egg weren't able to make any money out of them.

bunnygirl007

Did they send you a seoerate letter or was it just written on your statement? Just asking as am wondering if i'm due to get similar letter, if i do that is going to have severe impact on my ability to maintain payments whereas at the moment i'm just scraping by. Is this hat they want to push us into a situation where we can't pay? :mad:

enigmam

Bismarck wrote: »

Di they really say

"due to the current state of the economy" - I thought it was blatant profiteering myself...how can they say it's the economy's fault when interest rates are going down.....oh.... I get it, they're subsidising their losses elsewhere....and charging this rate because they think they'll get away with it.

I don't think this is right, in my humble opinion.

There is a difference between the BOE interest rate and the cost of borrowing between financial institutions (I think it's called the LIBOR). The BOE interest rate is slightly down on what is was a couple of months ago, but the credit crunch has made it much more difficult for companies to borrow money and it's much more expensive for them to do so .

Expect other cards to follow suit.