MBNA from 1.454% to 2.075

vbrindle

Join the club. I've been so wreckess with my money in the past and here's me trying to sort it (only found this site a couple of months ago, oh how I wish I had found it sooner) and it feels like they're delibrately trying to put a stop to it

I managed to transfer a measly £2,700 to citibank credit card (at 5.8% APR) from my barclaycard (22.9% APR) in Jan and have been trying to knock down my Barclaycard as much as possible, but it's hard work.

I found this link which makes me wonder if MBNA and Citi are related now:
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=71595&p=irol-irhome

I then tried to apply for a card in Feb then March and both were refused so I don't hold much hope and worry about applying for anything else because of all the searches.

Then I got this as a big blow. I have 8k on my Virgin Card and now I hear the APR is doubling to 29.8%. This makes it worse than my Barclaycard. I've never known interest rates go up so much in the past.

I don't know what to do now to be honest. I'm hoping my PPI claim goes through (but it's got to the stage where I've sent it to the Financial Ombudsman)

Julesbusiness

About 6 months ago Virgin tried to put me onto a rate of 29.9% from my (at the time) current rate of 15.9%. I telephoned the retentions department and got it (relatively) down to 21%.

On Saturday I got the now famous letter telling me that Virgin money had done some horizontal integration into the loan sharking industry and their opening move was to put my rate up to 34.9%. I once again called customer retentions and the first response I got was that once rates had been set, they couldn't change, then when I reminded them of the 29.9% story only 6 months ago, the call operator told me to hold and came back with a final offer of 29%.

Needless to say, I immediately transferred my balance and will call them back to cancel my account.

The retentions telephone number is 0800 7831116.

Having said the above, I had a lovely honeymoon period with the Virgin card at the start. I made a transfer balance of £10k at 0% for 15 months and they only wanted an unbelievable minimum repayment of £5 per month!!! However, as we all know, there is no such thing as a free lunch, and I now know that long standing loyal Virgin customers were paying for my very nice lunch. At 34.9%, I have no intention of paying for other people’s lunches.

Goodbye Virgin, you loved me once and promised to treat me well, then turned nasty and cruel on me.