Things I Learned By Calling MBNA
Posted on March 02, 2006 by Him and tagged credit
A few weeks ago I applied for, and was approved for an MBNA card that offered 0% balance transfers until April 2007. It had a modest credit limit of $2,500, which allowed me to transfer my $1,500 Citibank Card at 20.99% balance onto it. My next highest balance was on another MBNA card with a 17.99% with around $1,400 on it, so I called MBNA to see that that balance could also be transferred over.
Lo and behold, credit card companies don't really want consumers transferring balances from high rate cards to lower rate cards. I also tried to see if they would consolidate the two credit cards, but I guess they only do that if both cards have no balance on them.
The real surprise was that the customer service rep told me that I didn't make a payment this month. Whaaa? As it turns out, both Her and I have MBNA cards, and when we were doing our online bill paying we paid her MBNA card instead of mine. The customer service rep was really nice about it and said if I get in my payment ASAP they'd waive the late fee. Whew.
I wonder if they'd also tell me if I were a suspected terrorist by paying down too much on my credit card. (via Digg) In the near future, it doesn't look like we're going to have to worry about that.
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You should also check your credit reports to make sure that MBNA didn't report the late payment to the credit bureaus. If they did, all your credit cards rates could jump to the default rate under the "universal default clause." Currently, default rates are around 31% APR. Yikes!
No doubt about those late payments. The worst was when you are just under the limit, you get dinged with a late charge, and interest, putting you over the limit, causing an over the limit fee!
I'm in the process of doing something similar--I called MBNA to see if I could simply move my balance to their rewards card. Of course not.
So it has taken about a month so far to get approved for the new card and request the balance transfer (which I'm still waiting to hear that they have done it).
One trick I used when starting out...
If it doesn't cost you anything, you could transfer your MBNA balance at 17.99 to the CitiCard, and then transfer that amount right back to the other MBNA card. (Surf the same debt twice. I did this when I had two offers for zero percent, from companies that I already had cards with. I just used A to Pay B and B to Pay A)...
What a scary article. Within the next month I will make a very large credit card payement - I hope that this doesn't happen to me!
me | Mar 2, 2006
Be careful on those late payments. Even if they don't charge you, they'll flag you as being late. Do it again and you'll long for the days of 17% interest.
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