abbey/santander card

suttonman

I have just been told me abbey/mbna card is now administered by abbey/santander. I didn't get a letter i only found out because i rang to query something else.
I had a letter about 2 weeks ago (from abbey/mbna) saying that my apr was going up from 14.64% to 19.9%!!!!!!!!!!
When i queried it i was just told that "abbey have told us that is the rate from now on"
How can they justify such an increase? I asked how people were ever supposed to pay off these cards when the monthly interest figure goes up by 30%? "thats the figure we have to charge sorry" came the reply.
To make things worse my part interest free has run out so with the above change my monthly payments have gone up by 2.25 times!! and they didn't even write to say this was happening, they just asked for a higher minimum payment-no explanation -nothing.
has this massive rate increase happened to anyone else Is there anything that i can do about it.
I have other cards but no spare capacity to move any of this around.

Scaredy_Cat_3

Are you able to apply for a new 0% card with another company? I know there are some pretty good deals out there - I've just transferred a balance to a new Virgin card and that has 0% until August 2009.

steve_c10

and to think I was actually pondering the move from debit to credit.....I'll steer well clear from it now.

Cheers for the heads up.

suttonman

I have managed to get a barclaycard platinum with 6.5% for the life of the transfer, unfortunately my credit limit isn't enough to transfer all of the balance from abbey, but as long as i can move some it helps.