Misunderstanding
Posted: Mon 13 November, 2023 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Business, Customer Services, Domestic, Stupidity 3 Comments »Back in February, I got a specific credit card with two years of 0% interest on balance transfers. It’s all been good so far, and I”m down to about a third of the original balance, which is how I wanted things to be.
But today I got an email from them saying “Your promotional rate is expiring at the end of the month“, and talking about the money transfer rate. Which seemed a bit odd – and very early.
So anyway, I called them up to find out what was going on, and it turns out that (unsurprisingly) I’m a bloody idiot.
Turns out that the card also had a zero interest deal for money transfers – which aren’t, as I thought, the same as balance transfers. And that’s the rate that was expiring. I’m sure I should’ve known the difference between money and balance transfers, but in that general “What the fuck?” phase of things, I conflated the two things into one.
So anyway, all’s fine. And my acknowledgement of my own idiocy at least made the call handler laugh, so there’s that.
There’s a difference?? News to me.
So I transfer an AMOUNT from card A to card B, surely that’s a balance transfer? What’s a money transfer then, it’s all money!!
And this is why I’m so shit with money…
Gordon – Money transfer goes to your bank, balance transfer goes directly to another card (where you are the main car holder) to reduce or pay off the balance.
Lyle – Can you explain that you didn’t understand and ask for your amount to be put onto the terms of the type of transfer you believed you were getting? You’ll probably need to escalate this to a manager to get it properly looked at. I could tell you your chances of them agreeing if you tell me what card it is… And thinking… where was the money paid to, and did you do it by phone or onine?
Also… in the future, if you have a 0% offer, I’d suggest you only pay off what you absolutely have to (the ‘minimum payment’) – any extra money you might otherwise have overpaid can go in a savings account until the expiry date, when you use it to pay off the balance. It’s called stoozing and is worth doing again with 5.65% savings accounts around. Last time interest rates were this high, stoozing was how I repaid our nortgage 10 years early.
BW, it’s fine – the transfer happened as I’d wanted (balance transfer) when I got the card. I’ve never done a money transfer – but it was only that particular deal period that was ending.
You’d have thought that their systems would enable them to say “Only send the mail to customers who’ve actually done a money transfer” (although in fairness I guess that then someone might do a money transfer on the last day of the deal period and then go “Well no-one told *me* it was finishing!)
But anyway, all is fine (although thanks for the advice) and it was “just” me misunderstanding that Money Transfers and Balance Transfers are Not The Same Thing.