Egg Money

Egg are masters at using the small print to enrich themselves.

Don't waste your time with them.

Yes, I think so.

I tried it out by withdrawing a test amount. Then I made a funding credit the next day. Result - a minimum interest charge of 0.50 for 10 withdrawn for 1 day.

That said I wouldn't totally knock the card. I got it for overseas travel and thinking it would be better than a purely pre-pay card.

What I would knock is Egg online security. Almost alone they request a full house of data every time. Vulnerable to a single logging incident.

I think so. In hindsight a normal credit card and an Electron or Solo card is preferable.

Jim A

I'm not one, but it's an interesting story.

Are you saying there are layout is such that you would expect to be able to have two separate balances running, +ve and -ve (e.g. separate columns)? It would be unusual to regard such a beast as a single account, even if they are shown in an otherwise integrated way. In other words, if it *is* a single account, I would not really expect to see separate balances at any time.

If they really do say 4% interest on +ve balances *and* up to x days interest-free credit, that sounds like double counting of benefits. But do they really say that?

As a non-customer I had a look at some of the website blurb, specifically the 'What is it?' page and the 'Benefits and features' page.

I don't think it's technically misleading, but because I had read your post first I can't sure whether I would have been misled without having done so.

Consider the statement "No monthly payments required when you have a positive balance." Under your interpretation, there wouldn't be any point in stating such a thing, because you'd always have a positive balance (albeit possibly a negative one as well).

This isn't meant to sound flippant, but I don't think they would have unleashed the wrong implementation to the waiting world. They are not an arm of the government, after all! But no, I don't think you are missing anything: I can't see the point of it either. At least not yet.

The trouble is, I can't immediately see the benefit of it even if it worked the way you assumed it would. 4% is respectable, but nothing to write home about.

The layout certainly has separate columns for positive and negative balances. The question is, can they both be populated at the same time? My wife's first transaction on the account was a CC purchase - and that appeared in the -ve balance column with nothing in the +ve. She then made another purchase *and* paid some money in. I was expecting (perhaps foolishly) the aggregate of the purchases to appear in the -ve column, with the amount she paid in being in the +ve column. But no - there is just the net figure in the +ve column, and nothing in the -ve column.

Well, I thought they did - but looking again at the small print, they say "Egg Money customers will get up to 50 days' interest-free credit on purchases when they have a negative balance" - so it looks as if you don't get *any* interest-free credit when you have a positive balance. You say it's double counting of benefits, but surely the way I was *expecting* it to work is no different from using a normal credit card, and saving the money with which to pay the bill in full each month in an interest-bearing account with another institution. The only difference is that the savings and the CC are more closely integrated.

It depends on how you/they define "monthly payments". When you open the account, you have to authorise a DD which enables them to recover at least the mimimum required payment each month from a third-party current account when you have a negative balance. I interpreted "monthly payments" to mean exercising the DD rather than simply transferring money from the 'savings' side to the 'CC' side. I had assumed that the accumulated debt would be cleared in this way once per month rather than instantly on a per-transaction basis.

I wasn't meaning to suggest that Egg were treating my wife differently from other customers, or that it was not working as they intended, but was really asking whether I had drawn the wrong conclusions, based on just a handful of transactions.

From what I'm now seeing, if you keep a positive balance it behaves more like a debit card than a credit card. But you do get at least 1% cashback on purchases (allegedly) and probably get better purchase protection than you would with a debit card. And it's probably still ok for my wife, bearing in mind that if the money wasn't in the savings bit of the Egg Money account where its' earning at least *some* interest, it would be in her First Direct current account where it would earn *none*.

Is there a single financial institution you *would* recommend - or do you keep all your money under the bed?

They also send me an email every month which asking me to log in to check my statement, and which 'conveniently' contains a link to their home page... where there's a small notice warning about "renewed phishing attempt".

Then there's their Money Manager system they plug which enable you to access all your other bank accounts direct from their site without further password input etc, after you've registered all the details on egg. God knows why the other institutions allow it.

David

"Lobster" wrote

What makes you think they all *do* allow it ?

I write as a former dissatisfied customer, and I am delighted to inform you that my experience with Egg has not been typical of other financial organisations.

However, it is naive to expect any financial organisation these days to do other than put their directors' and shareholders' interests first. Therefore I would counsel scepticism in relation to their claims.

In Egg's case you need to be very cautious, as the following article from Martin Lewis shows:

Hadn't thought of that TBH - I'd assumed that they'd need to be party to an agreement to permit the relevant security details to be passed across from egg via software - is that not the case, then?

David

Money Manager isn't quite as dangerous as many people seem to assume. The information you input is not stored on Egg's web site, neither is it sent via Egg when you use it. Everything is stored on your own computer only.

The other financial institutions couldn't prevent it being used even if they wanted to.

Chris

This opens up a whole can of worms! Most banks insist within their T&Cs that you don't disclose passwords etc. to *anyone* (even your nearest and dearest) - so what happens when you disclose them to Egg? You must surely be contravening the T&Cs - so I wouldn't expect the other banks to support/condone such activity. There's no way I would use it!

Yes - you can use it like a pre-pay card that pays 4% interest (not a brilliant rate), in which case I believe you can even use it in cash machines to get cash out for free (i.e. no interest charged), or you can use it like a normal credit card.

Alas not on the one egg money account. I guess that table is designed to show all egg products (e.g. savings account + egg card) in a consistent way.

Yes. If you want to be paid interest by egg, you could open an (internet only) savings account as well. Has been paying the base rate for many years, which isn't market leading, but it's better than the 4%.

If she had a separate savings account and an egg money account, that's what would happen.

She would be better off doing that.

One reason I'm still using my egg card is that it pays 1% cashback. I dare say you can do better, but it's not bad. In fact they used to pay you 1% cashback on in-credit transfers to other accounts too, but alas they seem to have plugged that little wheeze just after I discovered it.

Peter

That boils down to egg applying repayments to the debt bearing the lowest interest rate first, no? That's annoying certainly, but just about every CC company seems to do this too (one exception being Nationwide).

Peter

The layout leaves that possibility open, but it's the same layout for everything, including their savings accounts, and no-one would expect to be able to have a negative balance in a savings account, let alone both at once.

Double counting of benefits? Surely that's no different from a current account that advertises a good credit interest rate *and* a low APR on overdrafts?

I've never really seen the point of the 4% bit, but then I've never really seen the point of pre-paid credit cards either!

Peter

So you agree also that they are full of little wheezes.

Let the customer beware.

I think you know this, but that "little wheeze" was very much in the customer's favour. Egg seem to me to be much like any other company/bank.

Always.

Peter

You're not disclosing any confidential details to Egg, so not breaking the T&Cs of other banks.

Chris

"Chris Blunt" wrote

... OK ...

"Chris Blunt" wrote

Not necessarily true! The system stores the confidential details on your own PC; storing the details this way in itself might break the T&C...

I don't think there's anything foolish about expecting it to work that way. I can understand the disappointment in discovering it doesn't. To have separate columns like that seems plain daft. Okay, so it highlights whether you're +ve or -ve, but there are other ways of doing that which are more appropriate.

Just for the record, I wasn't accusing *you* of double counting the benefits. I was accusing Egg of double-counting, subject to them having said what you said they said, if you see what I'm saying!

Yes, I suppose it's not normally possible to pay a CC direct from a savings account. That said, some current accounts have a decent interest rate (Nationwide current account pays 4% if you pay in £1000 per month).

Could Egg wriggle out their CCA obligations for purchases made when the account had enought of a +ve balance to fully cover the transaction? I hope not.