stuffed what can i do now

blueye

hi my bf has a lot of debt so ive been taking some of it on my own cards at 0% and 6.9% to try and help him out.

i have cleared a barclaycard for him in the hope they would give him a 6.9% lob transfer but they have declined, dont know what i can do now i dont want to try and get anymore cards because i dont want to mess my credit rating up

he has 2600 on egg 15% 3500 limit
2057 on virgin 29% 3000 limit
and 5157 on halifax 16% 5250 limit

i tried to do the transfer online would it be better to call them, he has made a few late payments and had his limit reduced but recently they increased it again is there any chance they would reconcider? sorry for the long post and thanks in advance

jimbo26

Be very wary of transferring his debt to your cards. The debt then becomes your responsibility.

blueye

yeah i understand this, we have been together 7 years so im not worried about that, thanks anyway

Bismarck

So he tried to do the transfer online to Barclaycard? Was the card completely clear before he tried this? Can you explain the timings in more detail...I had my limit reduced, then increased and I've done plenty of transfers to the card since so I'm a bit puzzled...

Scousebird_2

Sadly, for Barclaycard that doesn't surprise me! I'm sorry to hear you are having such problems-have you tried Virgin Money-I am with them and they are great.

jimbo26

A word of warning regarding Virgin Money. Only go down this route if you are sure you will get a deal from another credit card at the end of the balance transfer period. Virgin are notorious for upping their interest to around the 30% in some cases. This could leave you right in the mire.

SiuLoong

"have you tried Virgin Money-I am with them and they are great."

From reading the OP there is already a Virgin card with a v high APR.. moving/clearing this should be a priority over those with lower %

jimbo26

How about getting a loan?

benf90

If he is unable to get any other cards at 0% for balance transfers etc then the next best thing is to start looking at shuffling the debt between the existing cards to make sure he's paying the least amount of interest possible.

What rate is the Barclaycard? If its less than the Virgin card then see if you can transfer part or all of the Virgin balance over to the Barclaycard at the standard rate.

The Egg Card has approx £900 available. They will allow a transfer of up to 95% of whatever is available, 95% of £900 is £855. You'll be almost halving the rate of interest on the amount you transfer over.

As Egg is the cheapest rate you've listed he could possibly request a higher limit with them so that he can transfer over more of the Virgin balance.

For a more in depth explanation have a look at a guide on this site:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cards/cut-credit-card-interest

CannyJock

He should move as much as he can from the high APR cards to the lower APR cards, setup a direct debit to repay the minimum from the lowest APR cards and put every penny he can scrape together to clearing the highest APR card.

Tell him to put the numbers into the snowball calculator at www.whatsthecost.com

Is up to you if you want to include the balances that you've taken on his behalf into the calculations too. So long as you don't miss a payment it won't have any significant effect on your credit report having 2 cards with balances being repaid at the minimums.

Has he ordered copies of his credit reports to see if there's a history of any defaults or anything else as a black mark on him getting accepted for other cards? I'd recommend he does this then looks at getting LOB deals from other providers even if it turns the heat up on his credit file for a while: http://www.stoozing.com/lob.php. Follow the snowballing technique and he'll make the best of the situation.