I HATE my credit card!

[Plax]

If you have a serious amount of money on the card its still worth looking for a zero interest balance transfer deal, the handling fee is normally nowhere near what you are likely to pay in interest. I normally research it as much as I can before deciding which way to go, I normally make use of Money supermarket.com

Alas, in the current climate it's not worth it for putting in a savings account as you get very poor interest rates so you'd not get the interest back to cover the handling fee. I've not long closed one savings account that was 0.5%. Must say it is nice to have a 2% interest rate on the mortgage though . Agree if you have a big balance it is worth shopping about even with the handling fee if your current APR is stupid.

 

[Yellow Fang]

My credit card company seems to have developed a wheeze to stop you paying off all your payments each month. They appear to charge interest on the payment insurance. So one month you pay off the £50 on your statement, the next month (without having used it) your statement arrives saying you owe £1.50 (I can't be arsed to look up the actual amounts). You pay off the £1.50 and the next month your statement says you owe £0.04. I wrote them a snotty letter and said I was cancelling my card. Then I took up an offer of an Amazon credit card, only to find out it was with the same flipping credit card company. I paid off the couple of quid interest of insurance they charged me last month, and I am waiting to see how many pence they charge me this month.

 

[buggi]

My mum had £3k on hers and arrange for a set direct debit payment and was paying it off at £150 a month. When her balance got down to £400 they refused to take the £150 per month and said they would only debit £25 out of her account!!! obviously, they did not want to lose out on the interest any more than they had to. Needless to say, she cancelled the direct debit and continued to pay the £150 over the counter.

The sad thing is, you can never close a card. I asked for a closing balance on a set date and paid the cash. Everything went through fine and i even got a letter off them telling me my account was closed. six months later i got a statement saying i owed £15.00??? i queried it and they told me that an insurance company had taken the money out (it was one of those yearly subscriptions). I asked them how they could do this if the account was closed and i had had written confirmation of this from them, and they told me that credit accounts are never closed because at anytime someone can take from your account! It's disgusting.

 

[Plax]

My mum had £3k on hers and arrange for a set direct debit payment and was paying it off at £150 a month. When her balance got down to £400 they refused to take the £150 per month and said they would only debit £25 out of her account!!! obviously, they did not want to lose out on the interest any more than they had to. Needless to say, she cancelled the direct debit and continued to pay the £150 over the counter.

The sad thing is, you can never close a card. I asked for a closing balance on a set date and paid the cash. Everything went through fine and i even got a letter off them telling me my account was closed. six months later i got a statement saying i owed £15.00??? i queried it and they told me that an insurance company had taken the money out (it was one of those yearly subscriptions). I asked them how they could do this if the account was closed and i had had written confirmation of this from them, and they told me that credit accounts are never closed because at anytime someone can take from your account! It's disgusting.

I think that's called continuous payment authority. Where the company concerned has a little clause that says they will continue to take X amount per month or year unless you tell them otherwise. I think they bank on you forgetting / overlooking it. I used to pay my internet connection like that but transferred it to a direct debit which you can cancel easily rather than just relying on them to cancel your account (and possibly "forget" a few times). If you get any car insurance etc with the post office or the AA watch them for that as well as I know they are two companies that will do this.

 

[Chrisz]

LOL

Some lovely, sensible advice and winges about credit cards but................................

You all seem to have missed the point entirely!! This was meant very much as a tongue-in-cheek thread "they made me buy SR11 stuff" etc...

Please, no more serious financial wizard stuff - I'm actually happy that my new gear will be arriving on Tuesday - couldn't have happened at a better time

 

[Plax]

LOL

Some lovely, sensible advice and winges about credit cards but................................

You all seem to have missed the point entirely!! This was meant very much as a tongue-in-cheek thread "they made me buy SR11 stuff" etc...

Please, no more serious financial wizard stuff - I'm actually happy that my new gear will be arriving on Tuesday - couldn't have happened at a better time

Oops sorry, I'm rubbish at maths unless you put a £ in front of the numbers then I get a bit obsessed
Hope it actually does arrive on Tues for you!