When Balance Transfers Go Bad! by Finance News Bulletin

Published: 12/12/07

My pal Dave has got himself into a spot of bother (That's not his genuine name, but, according to new digital television canal Dave, everyone knows someone called Dave)Anyway, in common with millions of Brits, Dave has been expenditure more than he earns for fairly a while Thus, he's built up a debt of, say, £5,000 on a credit card

The difficulty with Dave's credit card is that it's an expensive piece of plastic, charging an interest speed of close to 20% a year By my calculation, Dave is paying at least £900 a year in interest on his ‘flexible pal'Dave's problem is made much worse by the fact that he's paying only the minimum journal repayments (MMRs) which his certificate requires As Dave's MMR is just 2% of the outstanding equilibrium, his monthly repayments are around £100

Thus, Dave's debt is plummeting by barely £10 a month, so it will take a lifetime for him to clear his balance at this pace OuchTo cut a extended story short, Dave asked me for help with bashing his debt load One of my first suggestions was to ‘stop the clock' on his interest bill through the use of a 0% balance move card

By movering his £5,000 debt onto one of scores of dissimilar cards which charge no interest on transferred balances, Dave can freeze his interest bill for a day or more This precious breathing space will save him close to £900 a year -- extra money which he can use to repay his money owing fasterSo, off went Dave to find a 0% deal unluckily, he made the mistake of going into his local branch to open a new praise certificate

Although he has a shiny, new Abbey certificate, he can't move his existing balance onto it That's because his Abbey credit card is issued by MBNA, which also issues his existing credit card In common with all other credit-card issuers, MBNA won't allow customers to transfer amount overdue between its own cards Sadly, this income that my mate Dave is back to square one

Recently, I've heard additional and additional Fools complain that they've been caught out by not being clever to move balances between cards issued by the same firms Thus, in arrange to help you out, I've trawled through a list of the 96 cards which present 0% balance transfers and then grouped them into the next lists My data comes from trickco

uk's independent, unbiased search wizard for credit cards2 HBOS: AA, Amazonco

uk, Bank of Scotland, Britannia BS, Halifax, Marriott, Norwich & Peterborough BS and Sainsbury's Bank4 MBNA Europe Bank: Abbey, Alliance & Leicester, Bank of Cyprus, Cheshire BS, Dunfermline BS, MBNA, Melton Mowbray BS, SonyCard and Virgin MoneySo, before applying for a credit card for a 0% balance transfer, find out which firm issues it -- see Baffled By The make for a comprehensive listing Otherwise, you may find that your new credit card won't accept transfers from related cards finally, do timepiece out for transfer fees, which can add 2% to 3% to the price of each transfer

More: Cut the price of your credit card today | Cheap Credit For Crafty clientele | Avoid Interest On Your Debts© Copyright 1998-2007, The Motley Fool Limited All rights kept This material is for individual use onlyPlace of Reg: England & Wales

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