Balance Transfer Fees – Misinformed by customer service?

helibaybee

I applied on line for the morgan stanley card after reading about the capped transfer fee, as i wanted to transfer £18,800 from my virgin card as the interest goes up in may.

I received a letter stating that my application was successful however the credit limit is only £1000 and they have processed my BT for £900 and apologised that they were unable to BT £17,900

I telephoned them to request that this BT does not take place as I have no wish to only transfer 5% of the debt, I was told that it had already been done and i could request that virgin send the funds back to them, but i would still be charged for the BT

I argued that i was unaware of this until it had taken place and surely they should have spoken to me first as I applied for £18,800 BT logically why would i be interested in a BT of just £900!

They then went on to ask if I have received my credit agreement, I had not. I stated that if i had received the credit agreement surely it would have stated my credit limit and I would have taken it up with them then. The asnwer to 'does it show the credit limit on the credit agreement' was 'not necessarily!' They have now passed it to the underwriters who i have to contact on mon as they only work mon to fri.

Has anone else had this experience as I am sure this is a case of bad practise and possibly illegal??

Any info would be much appreciated before mon when i will phone them!

Helen

YorkshireBoy

helibaybee wrote: »

I telephoned them to request that this BT does not take place as I have no wish to only transfer 5% of the debt, I was told that it had already been done...

This is the reason why it's always best to leave off the BT request, and wait to see what your credit limit is before proceeding. When you completed the BT request during the online application you were informed of the following...

"We will accept Balance Transfers up to your Credit Limit which may result in partial payment of a Balance Transfer."

...and presumably agreed to it?

...and i could request that virgin send the funds back to them...

Won't that result in another BT fee from Virgin?

...but i would still be charged £50 for the BT

How? 2% of £900 is £18.

They then went on to ask if I have received my credit agreement, I had not.

When you apply online for this product you electronically sign the credit agreement which you should then print out for your own information. After all, it's this that governs your contract with them.

I stated that if i had received the credit agreement surely it would have stated my credit limit and I would have taken it up with them then. The asnwer to 'does it show the credit limit on the credit agreement' was 'not necessarily!'

Your credit limit is shown on your welcome letter/copy credit agreement (top right) that your card is attached to. This letter asks you to call to activate your card.

They have now passed it to the underwriters who i have to contact on mon as they only work mon to fri.

Good luck! On checking my credit agreement, I see that I had 14 days to cancel. However, and crucially for you, the cancellation section says you "will still have to repay any money lent to you".

...possibly illegal??

Contrary to popular belief (on this board anyway), credit card companies do not operate illegally.

blisteringblue

helibaybee wrote: »

I applied on line for the morgan stanley card after reading about the capped transfer fee, as i wanted to transfer £18,800 from my virgin card as the interest goes up in may.

I received a letter stating that my application was successful however the credit limit is only £1000 and they have processed my BT for £900 and apologised that they were unable to BT £17,900

I telephoned them to request that this BT does not take place as I have no wish to only transfer 5% of the debt, I was told that it had already been done and i could request that virgin send the funds back to them, but i would still be charged £50 for the BT

I argued that i was unaware of this until it had taken place and surely they should have spoken to me first as I applied for £18,800 BT logically why would i be interested in a BT of just £900!

They then went on to ask if I have received my credit agreement, I had not. I stated that if i had received the credit agreement surely it would have stated my credit limit and I would have taken it up with them then. The asnwer to 'does it show the credit limit on the credit agreement' was 'not necessarily!' They have now passed it to the underwriters who i have to contact on mon as they only work mon to fri.

Has anone else had this experience as I am sure this is a case of bad practise and possibly illegal??

Any info would be much appreciated before mon when i will phone them!

Helen

Tricky one this as they haven't done anything wrong really, you are at the mercy of how much credit they are prepared to give you, which in this case is a low limit.

A lot of companies are starting to give very low initial limits and then up them over the months.

You can always just apply for the card without the balance transfer see what they give and then do the transfer when you get the card, as the offers are usually within the first few months.

No help to you but I did the same with Morgan Stanley and asked for £6000 transfer, they gave me a £5600 limit and have transfered £5100 of that, but as I'm using it to stooze for 9 months out of my OneAccount I'm quite happy with that.

rukia2004

Hi what is the =best deal fot a bt i'm with llodys c.c

youknowwho

Mortgage repayment.

Some credit card companies don't let you pay credit off with credit. Some will let you do a balance transfer where they actually put tghe money in your account. Abbey is one i know.

molly73

Hi Martin
I took out a 0% with Barclaycard in July 03. The condition was that you had to spend each month to be entitled to 0% (my friend told me about this offer I think it may have been from your radio 2 slot) I have finally sorted my finances out and anyway Upshot is the money I am paying each month is applied to the balance transfer ONLY. The spend is £2 DD donation (min spend 0.01p) - to charity is being charged interest. They will not allocate money to standard balance each month until the transfer has been cleared. The interest is not up to £1.96 per month and increasing. I cannot find the payment allocation in the T & C'S? HELP have I been stung!

bungalowbill

I'm not sure whether this is appropriate for this thread, but wanted to let you know what's happened recently to me.

I've 'tarted' in the past with no problems until recently. My 6 months Post office offer has just come to an end, and so opened the next card ready to transfer the balance. This has gone through fine, but have now discovered that Post office has charged me £25.75 for accepting the BT...so in effect for leaving them Does anyone know if there is a way round this? There doesn't seem much point in having a free BT, if the card you're leaving charges you anyway.

Also because I had spare credit limit, I transferred some towards my AMex card. But because this arrived before my pay due date, and wasn't the balance in full, they charged my interest on the outstanding amount, even though this was automatically paid by the due date. (so inotherwords the balance on the Amex card was paid in full but split over two separate dates)

Any help much appreciated!

thegasdoctor

Not many people may realise that a 5 month 0% deal with a 2.5% BT fee actually equates to a a yearly interest rate of 6% ( 2.5/5*12)

Not obvious to the uninitiated !

GD

medo71ck

Hi, Martin i recently followed your advice in which you said that the best balance transfer card is NatWest. When i wanted to tranfer money from my AmEx Platinum card to NatWest they told me it was not possible. I don't understand what's the problem AmEx tell me that everything on there side is fine.

CK

apb121

following advise from Martin, contacted RBS for reduced fixed rate; Martin indivated 1.9% for six months for existing customers; even told RBS I will move to another card; they still refused to drop rate.