Interest free on purchases - not happening

lillywover

Hi all
I have just registered on here since I am so mad about my experience with my credit card statement. Not sure if I am allowed to name and shame - I recently got a balance transfer card only for 6 months, the debt is fairly large but I can clear it at the end of this month. It was home improvements so it does belong on the mortgage. Thing is I needed to buy some flights on 14th feb, about £770. I do know that even if I credit my account with £770 the very next day, they will take that from the balance transfer element, so I will still incur interest on that £770. (Until the balance is paid off) I thought I would be OK since I am clearing the whole balance shortly after getting my statement with this purchase charge on. You see it clearly states on my summary of charges that the introductory offer was 0% on balance transfers and up to 59 interest free on purchases.

When I received my statement today, the credit card company have charged me interest from day 1. i.e 14th Feb, the transaction date. I have phoned up to complain and all I got was "well this is how credit card companies work, if you don't want to pay interest you should clear the whole balance". This payment was the first payment on purchases that I have made, I fully expect to pay interest on that amount - but only after I received the statement with it on and then obviously not clear the entire outstanding balance.

To me this is so wrong, the customer services checked with their department but were adamant they were correct. I have lodged a complaint but they will not respond until 10 to 15 days. Has anyone else come across this?

Bokkens

lillywover wrote: »

Hi all
You see it clearly states on my summary of charges that the introductory offer was 0% on balance transfers and up to 59 interest free on purchases.

?

The way I understand it is ;
You have 0% on BT for x amount of months.
You don't have 0% on purchases so as you pointed out due to the allocation of payments(in your Terms and Conditions)the purchase is given upto 59 days without interest if you pay it and the BT off in full by the due date you will incur no interest.
The interest is normally calculated on a daily basis so if you buy something on the 10th they will charge you 21 days interest as there are 31 days in that month.
If you had 0% on purchses for x amount of months you would not have been charged interest but you would still have had to pay the purchase off before the 0% period ended.
It is easy to make a mistake,I would suggest giving the card company some soft soap and see if they wavier the charges, if not you will have to apply for another card and BT to a 0% offer or pay the outstanding amount in full.
Either way good luck if you have any other developments post again.

lillywover

awww shucks so they were right. :-) it is easy to make a mistake on this. I kinda thought it worked like a normal credit card, if you were starting from scratch - ie bought something then you do not incur interest as long as you pay it off in time for your next statement - which is what I was doing. So in essence if you have a balance transfer and that doesn't include the purchases you get charged from day one til forever (which it would feel like paying of the balance). I am paying it all off at the end of the month, so will have to take it on the chin until then I suppose. Many thanks for saying this is normal and I am not going mad. :-)

CannyJock

lillywover wrote: »

Not sure if I am allowed to name and shame

Ah, go on, name them.

lillywover wrote: »

You see it clearly states on my summary of charges that the introductory offer was 0% on balance transfers and up to 59 interest free on purchases.

Is only interest free if paid in full. It's a sneaky thing they do to try and get you to spend when you've got a balance transfer offer running. General consensus is never to spend on a BT card, better to get a separate card for that.

NickX

CannyJock wrote: »

Is only interest free if paid in full. It's a sneaky thing they do to try and get you to spend when you've got a balance transfer offer running. General consensus is never to spend on a BT card, better to get a separate card for that.

This is coming up more and more now - Martin's advise is never to spend on a BT card, so the Credit Card companies are devising more and more sneaky ways to twist the customer's arms to spend on the BT cards and end up paying interest. To re-iterate do NOT spend on a BT card unless you know exactly what the implications in terms of payment allocations will be !!