New minimum payment scam?

Old_Codger wrote: »

And yes I did use my PPI refunds to reduce my borrowing to a manageable level only to find that a payment has been increased beyond a normal, reasonable level.

So your minimum payment should be interest + default fee + 2.5% or 3% of the remaining balance.

If you miss a payment on a balance transfer with a promotional rate then you would of lost the promotional rate and had to pay interest at the higher rate. Is this what has happened?

Old_Codger wrote: »

Hi, I have a Vanquis card that I make minimum payment plus a bit more every month. This month due to my wifes hospitalisation I overlooked the payment date.
I have been in a text conversation with an 'advisor' who says she is trying to 'help' me as I was late in paying, only a day and payed extra. During the course of the conversation she informed me that my minimum payment from now on would be £91 a month, its currently £68 and reducing every month as I clear the amount owing.
Is this even legal ? and will make budgeting every month difficult, allegedly it is to reduce the amount owing more quickly, Barclaycard do the same thing but balance never seems to come down.

Be like me and set up a dd. I usually pay manually the various amounts owing on my cards but if there is ever an issue with me not being able to I know the dd will kick in.

Old_Codger wrote: »

No balance transfer so my payments should be as you describe plus any default fee, if any.

So what was your balance on the last statement?

The late payment fee is £12.

ive been through myself with the same company and i think you may have missed a key point..You say your minimum payment was £63 and now they want you to pay £91. Well i am assuming they have (like they did for me) put youy on a TEMPORARY arrangement. By doing this they calculate how much you would pay over three months (say £189 -63 x3) and want you therefore to "catch up" so by the end of month 3 you would be back to normal and the normal payment schedule should resume.

A word of advice though - make sure that this amount is affordable. if its not get back in touch with them. dont get sucked into a spiral of recurring charges. I suspect also that like my father, you had the card from when you were working and just kept ticking over the balance with no real pressure to pay back the debt. They are quite happy making their £60 per month in interest and now suddenly you are retired, struggling to make the minimum payment and breaking the cycle. In my fathers case i found out that his near £5000 balance which had rolled over for nearly 15 years was now all charges and he hadnt made a purchase for over 10 years. In his case he was able to prove he had no disposable income (get pension credit) and is currently paying a nomimal £20 a month, interest free and they will get the rest from his estate when he dies!.

Old_Codger wrote: »

Hi, I have a Vanquis card that I make minimum payment plus a bit more every month. This month due to my wifes hospitalisation I overlooked the payment date.
I have been in a text conversation with an 'advisor' who says she is trying to 'help' me as I was late in paying, only a day and payed extra. During the course of the conversation she informed me that my minimum payment from now on would be £91 a month, its currently £68 and reducing every month as I clear the amount owing.
Is this even legal ? and will make budgeting every month difficult, allegedly it is to reduce the amount owing more quickly, Barclaycard do the same thing but balance never seems to come down.

Vanquis customers should see their minimum payment lower following a recent change to Vanquis' T&Cs. See my post to this thread.

However, credit card companies are now required to encourage customers who continually make minimum payments to pay off their balance quicker.

Barclaycard's minimum payment is 2.5% of the outstanding balance.

One problem with only making minimum payments is that most of it is interest.

A recent email I received from Vaquis contained this:

Instalment Plans

We may in the future offer you the ability to transfer any part of your balance to an Instalment Plan. This is a plan which enables you to repay part of your account balance, at a fixed rate of interest by fixed monthly payments over a set period. We will not transfer any part of your balance to an Instalment Plan without first telling you what the terms of the Instalment Plan would be and you then telling us to make the transfer.

Please refer to section 'B14', (see also A5, A7, B3, B15)

Perhaps your balance has been moved to an Installment Plan.

Vanquis' new T&Cs are here.