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I am exasperated with Tesco Bank customer service regarding my credit card. I have been an expert credit card juggler for many years, always opting for 0PC balance transfers as I have no intention of giving away my hard-earned money to myself and my husband (the founding drummer of Status Quo ).
But recently I checked my Tesco app and saw that they had charged me £119 in interest on my credit card. As I always pay the balance by direct debit plus additional lump sums where required, I knew this couldn’t be right. It has been a nightmare trying to fix this and in the meantime I have been charged even more interest.
GC, Oxfordshire.
Sally Hamilton responds: From the first verse of Status Quo’s 1979 hit Any You Want came to mind: ‘You paand your money. You choose. Except it seemed like you had no choice about the unwanted interest.
Zero percent interest credit cards come in three different types: those that charge zero percent interest only on balances transferred from other cards; 0 pc only on purchases; or 0 pc in both transfers and purchases.
Its deal with Tesco falls into the first category. It’s a 12-month interest-free balance transfer card, meaning only the £6,000 balance you transferred from your Barclaycard was eligible for 0 per cent interest. This meant you could spread your debt payments over a year at no cost other than a £210 balance transfer fee.
He played his cards well for nine months, until September. By then, he had approximately £2,200 left to pay interest-free by early January 2025.
However, at the time he used the Tesco card to pay for flights to Australia which cost £4,500. But he didn’t want to affect his 0PC balance transfer deal, so he quickly paid off the Tesco balance with his Barclaycard.
Shortly after, she saw the offender £119 of interest charged to her account and, in a panic, she called Tesco. After explaining what he had done, he agreed to refund the interest, but only by first refunding the price of the ticket to his Barclaycard. This seemed like a complex way to resolve things. Meanwhile, you saw more interest added to your account.
I intervened to ask Tesco if it could unravel the situation before interest increased further. He did it in one day, declaring that he had done nothing wrong and had simply followed the rules on his card to the letter.
He explained that payment for the flights with his Barclaycard was made into his Tesco account too soon, before the purchase of his Australian plane ticket was billed on his statement.
This resulted in the Barclaycard payment being applied to settle the remainder of the outstanding 0 per cent balance transfer amount and resulted in a purchase balance of £2,234. It was this latter balance that attracted interest of £119.
A Tesco spokesperson says: ‘Interest payments have been applied correctly, as described in the ‘payment allocation’ section of the monthly statement. However, this was not the result the customer expected when making the payment. We have therefore taken a number of measures to address this, including the return of interest.’
It went further by treating the £2,234 debt as a balance transfer and extended its 0pc offer for an additional 12 months to allow you to spread the cost of repayment. He added £75 as another gesture of goodwill. You were delighted.
My 100-year-old friend is a blind World War II Navy veteran who relies on his television to listen to the news and his favorite comedy shows. He also relies on his phone, living alone in the council flat he moved into with his late wife in 1976. Until this month he was paying around £36 a month for his Virgin Media service, which he considers an acceptable sum. But when his contract ended this month he was told it would rise to more than £70.
I called Virgin Media on his behalf. They were sympathetic, but only offered to reduce it to £60. After a further attempt through the retentions team, this was reduced to £53 per month for 18 months, after which it would increase to £76.
Can you persuade Virgin Media to reverse this increase?
K.B., Bolton.
Sally Hamilton responds: It is common in telecommunications – and other markets – to gain customers by offering introductory rates for a certain period, only to have the price rise when the offer period ends, usually after 12, 18 or 24 months.
But it requires customers to be vigilant at renewal time to ensure they don’t end up paying more than anticipated.
I’m the first to say that it’s important to haggle. Having received a nasty renewal quote from the AA (74 per cent more than last year for my car breakdown cover), I’m rolling up my sleeves to do just that. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll take my custom elsewhere.
But negotiating with suppliers can be a real pain, and someone who is 100 years old and visually impaired shouldn’t have to play hardball with their supplier, especially as a loyal customer. So I asked Virgin Media to investigate. He acted quickly and offered to reduce the bill to £35 a month. His friend was warned this will rise to £72 after 18 months, but Virgin Media confirmed the deal could be renegotiated at that time.
Incidentally, people on low incomes can sign up for a cheap broadband service from their current provider for as little as £10 a month, but customers will have to take advantage of benefits such as Universal Credit to qualify.
Virgin, which has two offers at £12.50 a month and £20 a month, says it regularly sends reminders to customers to check their eligibility. Your friend would have received an alert when his recent contract ended. However, social rates probably would not have suited him. These services are limited and in the case of Virgin they would not include the landline and TV package on which it depends.
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