credit cards and interest

[look_divine]

i know this may seem stupid
but just realised that my egg card is charging me £167 interest a month and also paying £78 payment protection
I have rang them to cancel the protection but can i not do anything about the interest?
Im paying them the minimum payment which has been £245 a month [V]

[Til]

Hiya LD - Can't say if you can do anything about the interest - sure an expert will advise soon... however you are not alone our interest was stupid pre iva but just last week a friend told me her MBNA card was very similar in amounts to your egg one - seems crazy!

[look_divine]

so in theory im not paying anything off the card the instead its going up

[Til]

yeah seems like it - my friend stopped using her card when it was near its limit and just kept paying min payments - after 3 months of not using her card the interest alone had taken the card over the limit so just paying min payment meant the balance kept going up!

It would be bad enough if balances stayed same as you would be paying but never getting anywhere - but for a balance to increase while paying min payments is very scary indeed!

[MelanieGiles]

You do agree to pay interest when you take these cards out, but you may be able to get the creditors to agree to a reduction or an interest free period. Anything is worth asking for and at the end of the day they can only say no.

[siorghra]

I was in the same situation. I didn't use my Egg card for 5 months and could only afford the minimum and the interest took it overlimit. Crazy!!

I have only missed one payment with Egg while my IVA is being set up and they have already sent me a 3 page default notice.

A colleague is work has applied for an Egg card and I politely told her what to do with it when it arrived as they are such lovely people [:p]

[moretolife]

hi there LD..just before we entered our IVA we totted up that a huge percentage of our total debt owed was probably interest that had been charges to our various cards in the two years when we only made minimum payments...like you we would pay 150.00 or so and they would add back on 160,00...talk about two steps forward one step back....
soul destroying

[Julie]

Hi

Probably the majority of us have the same story - the amount borrowed is a lot less than what we pay back, if we can only afford minimum payments.

What annoyed me with our case, was the fact we started the ball rolling for an IVA in July 06 and through total ineptness of the company we chose, the creditors did not meet unti Feb 07. So, as payments had then been missed ( no payments missed prior to deciding upon IVA) charges and interest were accrued. Ah if only I had found this forum then...

I guess this is how the credit card companies make their money.