Thread: Beetlejuice vs Egg Card

Although "minimum monthly payment" is computed as a percentage of debit balance outstanding, most cards have an absolute minimum payment requirement per month. Say if you only owe £7 on the card, they would still expect monthly payment of the minimum amount, say £5, not 5% of £7 outstanding or 35 pence.

"Cash interest"? Could it be debit interest generally levied at a higher monthly rate, on debit items resulting from cash advances, e.g. from an ATM. When you pay in, I believe most cards would use the credit to wipe out the accumulated cash advances first, then the other purchases. But if your total pay-ins fall below the total of cash advanced, then "cash interest" could continue to be levied monthly, as an item separate from "purchases interest(?)" at a lower rate.

Contractual Interest has been defeated in the courts quite a few times now, including a binding precedent in the High Court. CI, and the principles of Mutuality and Reciprocity are best not mentioned. Reclaim monthly compounded interest, but do not call it compound interest.

I would simply call it reclaiming unlawful interest accrued on unlawful charges. Best not to mention 16.9% annual rate, better to mention the monthly interest rate shown in black and white on the statement. Reclaim of such monthly compounded interest rests on the evidence of the monthly statements -- they were taken from you unlawfully, and you want them back, but not a penny more, nor a penny less. If the evidence is not there (no debit interest on a month due to your repaying the entire balance) then it is unsafe to reclaim what was not taken from you.

Cards and banks know all about CI now. If they want to fight you in court on it, they have done their homework, and they may well win, as they have done multiple times. So not to mention CI. CI? What CI?

GL

I think I missed first time what you were saying?
That after, say £2,000 worth of (6 months?) interest-free debit balance was transferred into your Egg card, you enjoyed an interst holiday, but you were surprised to be asked to stump up the £100 per month (5%) minimum payment due from the £2,000 inward balance transfer?

I would imagine this would be within their agreed rules. When Egg waived 6 months debit interest, they did not waive 6 months worth of minimum payment. If they had done, they sure would have beaten the drum big time about it to drum up business.

1.313% per what? (day,month?)

1.313% interest per month looks too low for the past few years -- more like 1.6% rising to 2% now. Interest rates fluctuated from month to month, as announced on Egg card statements. If you request a lump sum of interst without itemised calculations, you are forcing Egg to duplicate your own calculations, which they will not do.

Far better to present a spreadsheet, and for anyone unfamiliar with excel, a manually filled in table will do, showing the interest rate of the month, the unlawful (charges + accumulated interest to date) x interest rate, giving the derived debit interest for that month, which can be checked against the actual interest showing on the statement. The pile of interest would grow month by month, with a separate pile of growing charges. But there needs to be a way in to spotcheck any unlawful item and verify the interest calculated thereon.

When claims go to court, judges also require itemised statements. There was a case dismissed because the claimant could not be bothered to submit itemised charges after having been told by the court to do so.

Any claim which appears unclear, unsubstantiated, would understandably be placed at the bottom of the pile of claims for action.

Mister,

thanks for your comments. There were several balance transfers and the interest per month didn't amount to much until the periods had ended.
I have filled in Minzai's Spreadie (v1.1) it looks okay but I'm still not (100%) sure of the interest they have charged me on the charges I've used 16.9% on the spread sheet - on the element of that months interest - but it is only referred to as a monthly rate (1.31%) on Mindzai's spreadie. Do I need to input each months interest rate per month's charge then work the "to date interest" on that rate !! I realise it's a complicated calculation and I'm reasonably Excel literate, but still need a few pointers

Let me know

BJ

I am unfamiliar with Minzai's or anybody else's spreadsheet. Debit interest is calculated daily, but only applied MONTHLY -- this makes a huge difference. To avoid Egg doubting and challenging computations (or placing your claim at the bottom of a pile for queries), best to show your computation of unlawful interest applied MONTHLY, so that it can be compared against the actual debit interst shown on your monthly statement.

It looks as if your July 2004 monthly interest rate of 1.1093 has been lowered by Egg's special bonus arrangements about inward balance transfers.

Lets say your first unlawful penalty charge of £20 was applied in June 2004. In July 2004 your statement showed debit interest of £9, which included lawful interest on purchases as well as £20 x 0.01093 = 22 pence unlawful interest. This £20.22 will then roll unlawfully forward to accrue debit interest in August 2004 unless you happened to pay off or greatly reduce your debit balance outstanding -- if zero or greatly reduced debit balance, then zero or greatly reduced debit interest.

Lets say in July 2004 you also incurred additional unlawful £20 charge for Overlimit and £20 for Late Payment. Then in the August 2004 statement you will have been debited unlawful interest of (£20.22 + £20 + £20) = £60.22. Lets say the interest rate rose to 1.149% in August 2004 as shown in your statement, then your new unlawful interest in August 2004 would have been £60.22 x 0.01149 = 69 pence.

In September 2004 your unlawful interest accrual will be computed from

( total of June charges = £20
+ total of July charges = £40
+ total of Aug charge = none
+ total of July intest = 22 pence
+ total of Aug interest = 69 pence)

= grand total of unlawful charges £60
& unlawful interest of £0.91

Multiplying £60.91 with the interest rate prevailing in Sept 2004, lets say still at 1.149% per month gives you the September 2004 unlawful interst of 70 pence.

Each of these computations of unlawful interest can be compared against the actual debit interest shown on your statements. Unlawful interest can be less than interest shown on the statement (the remainder being lawful interest from purchase spending), but cannot be more.

The grand total of what you reclaim is the sum of
all monthly unlawful charges,
and all monthly unlawful interest computed by you.

This way computations and reclaims can be spotchecked by you and Egg against monthly statements. By reclaiming what was so evidently and unlawfully taken by Egg, you are reversing the process, neatly sidestepping all mention of the legal principles of Reciprocity, Mutuality, and compound interst refund, all of which have been defeated in the courts, more than once.

This was the computation format I used while enclosing excel spreadsheet sent to Egg, and was accepted by return of post without a murmur. I have no comment on other spreadsheets applying interest by the day.

GL. The procedure works, check out the two latest winners in V-E Day Parade, number 60 and 61.

If you PM me your email-id,
I shall email you my spreadsheet, as PM does not allow excel attachment.

Beetlejuice, emailed you.

Lets try to clarify Contractual interest Reclaim, and until someone finds a better name, Demonstrable Interest Reclaim. This is merely the way I see it, Forum comment is welcome.

Contractual Interest Reclaim, at 29.6% per annum compounded monthly.

I believe the fullblown version of this is founded on the legal principles of Mutuality, Reciprocity, and compound interest accrual. At its simplest the intuitive idea -- "What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander".

If you owe Egg money they charge you x % interest per month, then if by accident or as a result of unlawful charges Egg finished up owing you money, then Egg by natural justice and symmetry OUGHT (this is the key word, alas not "MUST" following a signed contract saying so) to retrospectively pay you the same rate of interest for "lending" them money, as Egg charge you when they lent you money. This reclaim goes back to first principles of compensation, and takes no account of the amount of unlawful debit interest which Egg physically levied on your account, accrued from their unlawful charges.

Demonstrable Interest Reclaim

By contrast, this approach tries to reconstruct the exact total of interest, as near as can be ascertained by careful computation, accrued by unlawful charges as distinct from interest accrued on lawful purchases etc. This approach seeks refund of only the debit interest demonstrably levied as evidenced by monthly statements, not a penny more not a penny less.

The Difference

Lets say £500 unlawful charges were levied during 2001/2002, and unlawful interest was accrued and levied during 2001/2002.

Lets say during the whole of 2003 you kept your account balance down to nil, so that no debit interest was levied by Egg at all, as proven by monthly statements.

In 2004 your account balance climbed well above zero again, and unlawful penalty charges also recurred, amounting to a total of £200, as did unlawful interest accrued on these £200 new charges (not on the old 2001/2002 £500 charges).

In 2005 say you paid off and closed Egg Card, or it went to DCA and interest accrual was stopped by Egg.

Contractual Interest Reclaim based on Mutuality and Reciprocity says because you unintentionally lent Egg £500 in 2001/2002, then £200 in 2004, Egg ought to retrospectively pay you 29.6% per annum interest compounded monthly in Egg style, right up to August 2007 when you claimed.

Demonstrable Interest Reclaim, however, will only seek repayment of interest witnessed as levied on monthly statements during 2001/2002, and 2004, but not in 2003 or 2005/2007. Only the interest physically taken away will be reclaimed by you.

In this particular case the two totals reclaimed differ substantially because of zero Egg interest during 2003 and 2005/2006. In the majority of cases involving no zero-interest period it is doubtful if there is much difference between the two totals reclaimed.

What is different is the footing if the case gets to court. C.I. stands of falls on legal principles requiring thorough homework on precedents to present in court. The "Demonstrable Interest Reclaim" is entirely pragmatic, namely Egg could not justify holding onto debit interest they demonstrably took, once they made the de facto admission that penalty charges were unlawful.

Anyone seriously interested in the latest on Contractual Interest could follow Contractual Interest - Precedent - LOST . Apart from this lost case there were others, and one time Lloyds Bank paid up on charges but separately fought and won the C.I., leaving the claimants with zero repayment on interest in any form by any computation. Mention of C.I. therefore could risk waving a red flag to a Spanish bull, drawing attention and potentially triggering an unnecessary court fight with questionable chances for the claimants.

Whatever Egg management will accept, that's what counts. These days Egg do not look for a court fight, but it would seem easier to reclaim basically the same amount as "Contractual Interest" but calling it disarmingly "Demonstrable Interest".