@mbna MBNA/ Virgin Credit Card Charges Advice

[PinotGrigio41]

I have requested from MBNA that they refund charges amounting to £408.00 (£470.84 with interest)on my MBNA / Virgin credit card. The response received yesterday was the standard " we have done nothing wrong, we wont refund you anything"response. They have stated that they have exhausted their complaint process and that it is their final response.These charges are all £12 charges yet they were advised in 2008/2009/10 that we were in financial difficulties. In dec 2010 we entered a payment arrangement with them, which ran for the whole of 2011, and from this month have now just entered a DMP . During these times they continued to add charges and over the limit fees.

 

My questions are these:

 

1 .From Jan 2012 they have agreed to freeze interest and not make any further charges. If I pursue this refund claim could I potentially antagonise them and upset the upcart re the DMP ?

 

2. If its ok to continue to pursue this, shall I send them a LBA and hope they then re think, or not bother as they have said this letter is their final response on the matter ?

 

3. The next step, then I am assuming would be the FOS, I tried them with Halifax and they were next to useless and I am intending pursuing them through the court, but is it worth trying them with MBNA and then if I have no luck try the court ?

 

Many Thanks in advance for your advice.

[ims21]

Hi

 

If you put this to fos you are likely to be on for a long long wait and TBH fos are pretty toothless in respect of charges...OFT said they wouldn't investigate cases where charges were levied at £12. (Doesn't make them lawful though)

 

You'd be best to prepare a Schedule of Claim spreadsheet (SOC) to find out what kind of sum you are looking at. You will find that with compound interest it comes to a significant amount.

 

CISheet v101.xls

 

 

ims

Edited January 10, 2012 by ims21

[PinotGrigio41]

Thankyou again ! You always seem to reply to my posts ! Have you any idea if I take this further whether it might antagonise them as far as my DMP is concerned ?

[ims21]

In my eyes it doesn't matter whether they are miffed or not....this is a legitimate claim to get your money back. It will reduce (or in some cases clear) the debt. From your point of view that has to be a good thing.

 

ims

[PinotGrigio41]

Yes absolutely and I do agree, it would knock another nice chunk off of the debt. They have frozen interest now ( for the time being at least) and what I didnt want them to do was get miffed and decide to start charging again. I have no idea if they are so fickle ! I have looked at the link you sent, I am assuming I put the Interest on the card in the box at the top. What do I do if the interest changed over the years. To work out the interest I mentioned in the original post, I just used a calculator on another website and I think it charged interest at 8% across the board. Is this the wrong amount to ask for ? Sorry for all the questions.

[ims21]

Hi

 

Forget 8%

 

Use the sheet I gave you and if the rate has changed then use the average of the rates they charged on the card.

 

See what the total comes to in relation to the debt.

 

ims

[PinotGrigio41]

Ok great. To be honest I ahve absolutely no idea what the average was. I will dig out all of the statements and see what figure I come to. Should I then send them a LBA and change the amounts I am requesting ( I asked for the 8% figure in my previous letter) , or just go straight down the court route. I have two more MBNA cards I am waiting for a response from with charges amounting to about £900 each before the interest, so it looks as though I can expect a similar response on those also. Thankyou for your time .

[ims21]

Hi

 

Before you send anything I'd get the schedule worked out correctly and then we can see what impact it will have on the account

 

ims

[PinotGrigio41]

Ok will do.

[PinotGrigio41]

Back with another MBNA question please. Basically I am trying to reclaim charges on three accounts. One responded as above, the other with an offer of £112 ish ( I requested £900 ish ) and lastly another response today on the 3rd card of £357.53 ( requested £962) The letterstates they are arranging to credit my account with the amount offered and having checked today this has been done already. Obviously this offer is great and reduces the balance, but is it worth going back to them and asking them to reconsider a higher offer , or just accept what has been refunded . Any thoughts appreciated. Thankyou .

[ims21]

Ultimately the decision to accept or not is one for the claimant to make.

 

You can press them for more and ultimately sue for compound interest if you wish.

 

ims

[PinotGrigio41]

Are they likely to withdraw their original offer though do you know ?

[ims21]

I think it unlikely....if they don't want to cough up any more they will more likely write to you and say it is their final response on the matter.

[PinotGrigio41]

Further to my post of the 21st Jan re two of my MBNA cards. As mentioned then, both had offered to refund some of the money requested at that time. I did go back to them asking them to reconsider my requests for £900 and £962. I have received responses from both. One has refunded £2300 and the other £2500 despite me only requesting £900, but it appears they have refunded interest charges also. Obviously I am very happy with this. I hadn't actually pursued the MBNA / Virgin card further as I had decided to wait to see what their final response was re the other two cards, therefore having now received this, despite them telling me their offer of no refund whatsoever was their final response, I will go to them today and ask them to reconsider. We fell into difficulties with all three cards at the same time and our financial history and communications re all three cards are are identical. On that basis I feel its worth another shot before following the FOS route.

 

Anyway just thought I would update.