Egg balance transfers - beware

Some time ago, I received an email from Egg offering me a balance transfer on my card at a promotional rate of 3.9%.

Within the text of that email the following wording appeared. "There are no fees involved and you can transfer any amount right up to your credit limit."

I did exactly that, and transferred a balance right up to the level of my credit limit. A few days later my statement of account was produced to which they had added not only interest for the balance, but a £20 "overlimit fee". Because I was right up to my limit, the interest added had taken me a little over it.

I can see that while they may have been technically correct in doing that, I do think it was a little unfair because by specifically inviting me take a balance transfer right up to my limit they were in fact encouraging me to do something which would inevitably result in me breaking the conditions of my agreement with them, so incurring a penalty.

To make it worse, they have also been adding interest to the overlimit fee at their merchandise rate of 15.9% ever since. Because of the order in which they apply repayments made to the account I'm now unable to pay off the charge for the overlimit fee until I have completely repaid the balance transfer.

Just be cautious when accepting invitations like this as doing so may result in you incurring a charge for breach of your agreement.

Chris

Reply to
Chris Blunt
Loading thread data ...

Chris, did you call and speak to Egg? My personal experiences with Egg have been very good. When I exceeded my limit and the fees would have caused big problems, they agreed to waive the fee.

Its probably too late now, but I'd certainly call and ask if they can help.

Jason

Reply to
Jason

Yes, this happened to me too. :-(

But it's not quite so bad. Unusually, Egg distributes the minimum payment over all the various balances, not only the lowest interest one as others do, so you will pay off the charge plus interest fairly quickly.

They also gave me 2 cashback points for the charge!

Ben

Reply to
Ben Edgington

When I went 3 over by maximising my credit card at the same rate, Egg did not charge me any over limit fee.

If they did I would have gone mad citing irresponsible lending by deliberately allowing me to go overdrawn.

Reply to
Jane Tweedynn

Or the Unfair Contract Terms, or an unenforceable penalty etc.

Reply to
Doug Ramage

In message , Jane Tweedynn writes

What on earth does that mean?

Reply to
john boyle

snip

This happened to me a few months ago.

Try 1. I complained using their secure mesaging service, they responded with an answer to a totally different question. Try 2 .I reiterated my complaint, they responded by quoting their T's and C's Try 3. I threatened to close all my Egg accounts and not renew my car insurance AND asked whether I had exhausted their complaints procedure as I intended to refer the matter to the Financial Ombudsman.

Result! I got a call from Customer Relations, agreeing with my perspective and they refunded the overlimit charge and refunded the interest.

They also said that they were changing their system so that you could only transfer up to 95% of your credit limit - it states this on their current balance transfer offer.

A bit of persistence and you should get your money back. Good luck!

Reply to
Gary Pepworth

Did they also put that in writing to you? It could save me going through the whole procedure you did if I could quote such a statement from them.

Chris

Reply to
Chris Blunt

I no longer have the letter, however IIRC it went along the lines of 'being pleased that they were able to resolve my complaint, confirming what they were going to do and giving info on how to contact the Financial Ombudsman'.

Reply to
Gary Pepworth

BeanSmart website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.