Advice needed. I need a 0% bal transfer c/c!!

pennys2000

I currently have a credit card with Alliance & Leicester. For a few months I was over the £4000 credit limit and was getting charged £12 admin fee every month because of it. I still managed to pay the minimum repayment (approx £78 per month) every month and have just managed to pay £300 off and have got just under the credit limit.
This month I was expecting to have to pay a little bit less then what I was paying and was very much looking forward to it as I am very much struggling to pay bills, mortgage, etc, only to open my bill to find that my minimum payment is to be £112!! I called them up and have been told that my interest rate has risen from 16.9% to a wapping 29.9%!! How they can take advantage of people who are obviously in financial difficulty is beyond me... Anyway, to cut a long story short, I have applied for a capital one credt card eith 0% balance transfer only to be told that they will only give me a card with 0% on purchases and balance transfers at a rate of 24.9% which I have turned down. I am now at the end of my tether and do not know what to do!! . Would you suggest I get a Citibank card? I have £3900 of credit card debt and no savings. My credit score seems to me to be fine, there are no late/missed payments ... Any help would be greatly appreciated.

GeorgeUK

Your credit score will vary for different organisations. Looking at the score the credit agencies provide doesn't really mean much as they don't look at the same criteria.

You can usually have about 3 credit searches in a 6 month period before your credit score is affected, so be careful with that. The best 0% card right now seems to be the virgin money card. You may want to try that as the min payment for 2nd-15th months is £25. I wouldn't apply for any more cards after your next one though - not for 6 months. Give your record a little time to recover and clear some of the searches.

Can't believe cap1 would give 0% on purchases but put a silly rate like that on the BT.

bethanyrayne

GeorgeUK wrote: »

Can't believe cap1 would give 0% on purchases but put a silly rate like that on the BT.

Yes, they do. I got that offer.

Moggles_2

Unfortunately, Cap One operates a rate-for-risk policy. This means that C1 reserves the right to issue the credit card from its range, which it deems most suitable. In the worst cases you can be sent a totally unsuitable card, leaving you with a wasted search on your credit file.

Personally, I would have kept the 0% purchases card and used it to pay all my bills. This would have at least freed up some income and enabled you to increase your payments to Alliance & Leicester.

Moggles_2

I agree with George. To maximise the 0% period, 15 months is currently available to new customers from Virgin. There's a 2.98% handling charge

Alternatively, you would get 14 months with Egg. A 3 % BT fee applies. (You'd have 13 months with Citibank, but credit limits tend to be low.)

pennys2000

Ok, I have just spoken to Alliance & leicester's credit xcard account team and they have agreed that they will reduce the interest rate from 29.9% back down to 21.9% which is something I suppose although I will still need to pay the 29.9% that has accumulated this month...
Many thanks for everyone's advice. I will attempt one more time to get creit card with 0% on balance transfers although I don't really feel that lucky to be honest

battyboimatt

A+L credit card is provided by MBNA so you would not be able to trasnfer from the A+L card to the virign card as this is by MBNA as well

DestroyingAngel_2

battyboimatt wrote: »

A+L credit card is provided by MBNA so you would not be able to trasnfer from the A+L card to the virign card as this is by MBNA as well

It's true A&L ccs are serviced by MBNA and Virgin as well and you can't simply transfer the balance from one to the other. However, there is a way around this conundrum.

If you have a new Virgin card with 0% and no balance on it i.e it's a real virgin , and your A&L card is on a high interest rate, here's how you can transfer the balance from your A&L card to the Virgin card: ask MBNA for a Money Transfer (which would have the same promotion rate as a BT) to your Current Account. All you pay is the handling charge, which would be 2.98%-3% of the amount you're transferring.

Once the funds are in your current account (7-10 working days), ask your Bank to transfer that to your Virgin card. Your bank will charge you a handling fee for that. When that's done, your Virgin card will have the balance at 0%, and your A&L card will have a 0 balance.

You'll need to make sure you pay off the handling charge on the A&L card, plus any residual interest that shows on the next statement...after that, you can close the A&L account, or keep it for "just in case". And just make sure you keep up with the minimum payment requirements on the Virgin card, to keep the 0% rate.

It's a bit like money-laundering...but hey, it's perfectly legal! :rotfl: