RANT - credit cards

commuterised

I want to rant..

first of all the government are charging me 40euro for the priviledge of gettting myself into debt with a credit card and now they want to charge me and extra 40euro to cancel the credit card. wtf??? grrrrrrrrrrrrrr:mad:

Cabaal

Its bloody annoying alright, saw the charge when I logged into 365online.com today

Used to be €15 wasn;t it?

commuterised

yeah it used to be something fairly manageable like 15euro but now it's a bloody full tank of petrol! (which is another one of my fav rants, but I'm in a fairly good humour today so I wont go there!)

dmeehan

there is a way around it:
get an ulsterbank card who will give you €40 if u spend €5000

seems a bit extreme to get around paying €40

but there is a way around this too

lodge €5000 from your credit card into your paddypower.com account

later that day, withdraw €5000 (+winnings) into your ulsterbank credit card

thats the €40 charge covered

Rabies

Originally posted by dmeehan
there is a way around it:
get an ulsterbank card who will give you €40 if u spend €5000

seems a bit extreme to get around paying €40

but there is a way around this too

lodge €5000 from your credit card into your paddypower.com account

later that day, withdraw €5000 (+winnings) into your ulsterbank credit card

thats the €40 charge covered

There is one small prob with that. You need to have €5000 in your account for that. I don't know many students could lodge that kind of money.

commuterised

and the plus winnings part, what if you loose it all, then you're rightly fecked..

Lawdie

Anyone know if AIB charge for using its 24 hour banking service.

On the issue of BOI charging its really taken the p*ss (excuse my language)

The more we use banks internet the more they save.

It allows them to remove many manual tasks and close branches remove staff.

I'll say it again they want more and more people to do everything over the net.

To charge is like the saying "I don't mind someone crapping on me, but don't rub it in"

I've left banks (entirely) before and move account because of charges. If more people do it the message will get through. Theres always a bank willing to offer discounts, low fees or rates to movers.

People power

Victor

Originally posted by commuterised
first of all the government are charging me 40euro for the priviledge of gettting myself into debt with a credit card and now they want to charge me and extra 40euro to cancel the credit card. wtf??? grrrrrrrrrrrrrr:mad:

Eh, isn't the stamp duty charged at the end of the year? Thus you are only paying up to date(?).

daveg

now they want to charge me and extra 40euro to cancel the credit card

WTF - they charge you €40 now to cancel the credit card ? I'm a fvuckin idiot. I have 4 cards !! (1 visa, 1 amex and 2 laser cards). I have recently only got over the fact I have to pay €160 this year for my cards - of which I will be cancelling the 2 laser cards - ARE YOU NOW TELLING ME I HAVE TO PAY €80 TO CANCEL THEM ??? AAGGGGHHHHH /end rant.

commuterised

well I had just paid the 40euro stamp duty so I thought that was the end of it. But when I rang up to discuss what I had to do to cancel the card I was told there was a 40euro cancellation fee (from April 1st). I told the person that I had just been charged the 40euro stamp duty fee and I was informed that this is on top of that, yes 80 euro....

eth0_

Which bank is charging you to cancel a card? That's insane.

daveg

I'm gonna ring AIB (my bank). If tihs is the case they are about to loose 1 customer.

daveg

AIB don't charge to cancel credit cards. Wheewww

commuterised

well DaveG, it was the credit card centre of AIB that informed me of this 40euro charge.

The account is closed as and from last friday so I don't know how they intend to charge me this fee. I'll keep you posted.

Are they allowed to take it from one of my current accounts without my permission?

daveg

well DaveG, it was the credit card centre of AIB that informed me of this 40euro charge.

I rang 24 hour banking and they told me know but you got it from the horses mouth :mad:

Are they allowed to take it from one of my current accounts without my permission?

You bet your ass they are. We remorgaged with TSB from AIB recently and AIB charged our account for legal fees - overdrew our account and everything. I'm begining to get pissed off with AIB. 24 hour banking is the only good thing about them.

RainyDay

The 40 stamp duty is charged to all accounts open on 1st April each year - so it's too late to cancel your card to avoid this tax.

Introducing a cancellation charge would almost certainly be a change to the terms & conditions that you signed up for when you opened the account - they would need to have notified you of this change in writing before it would be effective.

Silvera

I cancelled my (AIB) Visa Credit Card in the middle of March no problem - cancelled over the phone with a few security checks. A formal letter was sent to me a few days later. (no cancellation fee)

I asked the guy when did the charge apply from, and he said April 1.
I got my final bill from visa last week and no €40 charge was on it.

However, I recall reading somewhere that they will continue to send people bills until their account is settled in full, e.g. direct debits, etc.


daveg,
I would encourage you, and others, to close ALL your AIB accounts.
I have already done so and I was with them over 22 years.
I was thinking about moving before and when I heard that their freebanking facility (i.e. keep balance over €500=avoid fees) was being removed in July, that was the last straw.

Unless we refuse to pay account fees (by moving banks) they will continue to charge high fees.
(UK Banks tried to introduce fees some years ago. Thousands closed their accounts and so fees were abolished.)

See the post : " AIB gouging their customers" in the Savings and Investment section of www.askaboutmoney.com (excellent Irish site)

Cheers,
Silvera.

Originally posted by Silvera
I asked the guy when did the charge apply from, and he said April 1.
I got my final bill from visa last week and no €40 charge was on it.

However, I recall reading somewhere that they will continue to send people bills until their account is settled in full, e.g. direct debits, etc.

The €40 charge is charged from april 1 as said above.
Of course you will continue to receive a bill if, you owe them money, in that case all they are doing is blocking credit on your account, technically it cannot be closed unless theres a zero balance.

Regarding Commuterised query, it sounds like crossed wires:
Since you cancelled your card after april 1, ie you still had the card open in april you were charged the new €40 rate for the card.
The correct course of action would have been to keep the card untill next march or to have cancelled it a month ago.
There is no charge for closing a cc A/c from AIB or the others, they will now look for that €40 stamp duty from you as it would have been posted to your A/c before you closed it.
mm

yankinlk

in the states, the big thing to compain about is ATM fees. Around a dollar for a transaction at your own bank that goes up to 2.50 or more if you use a different bank. People went mental...

I came here and found the interest rate on the credit cards to be very high, the spend limit on offer (800 euro) to be pitifully useless and low, and this crazy stamp duty fee to be outright insane.

Kept my american plastic - at $0 annual fee, low interest rate = 2% - 12%, and $5000-$15000 limit.

My advice, get yourself an address in the states (a freind, relative, po box, whatever) and use your good credit to get real spending power. they give credit cards out in gumball machines over there.

dmeehan

Originally posted by commuterised
and the plus winnings part, what if you loose it all, then you're rightly fecked..

you dont have to place a bet

There is one small prob with that. You need to have €5000 in your account for that. I don't know many students could lodge that kind of money.

its a credit card, you are not supposed to have the money in your account

even if you limit is €100, just repeat the process 50 times:D

Victor

Originally posted by yankinlk
Kept my american plastic - at $0 annual fee, low interest rate = 2% - 12%, and $5000-$15000 limit. My advice, get yourself an address in the states (a freind, relative, po box, whatever) and use your good credit to get real spending power. they give credit cards out in gumball machines over there.

In part this is down to a completely different credit culture and also the level of competition in the American market. Americans also tend to use their cards for a lot more types of purchase.

RainyDay

Kept my american plastic - at $0 annual fee, low interest rate = 2% - 12%, and $5000-$15000 limit.

My advice, get yourself an address in the states (a freind, relative, po box, whatever) and use your good credit to get real spending power.

You wouldn't want to use a US card for your regular spending. You'll be paying foreign exchange surcharges of 1.75%-2.5% on each transaction (build into the FX rate that appears on your statement).

You'll probably incur FX charges every time you need to make a payment to your card.

yankinlk

nope wrong. you get a better rate than you do if you walk into a bank over here. much better rate.

i dont mind paying that anyway when a credit card over here costs 40 euros beofre you use it once. plus the interest rate is a pisstake.

RainyDay

If you check out the FX charges of the best credit cards from the Askaboutmoney.com/Sunday Tribune Best Buys list, you'll find that the FX charges vary from 1.75% to 2.65%.

You've stated that rate is a 'much better rate' then the over-the-counter rate at any bank. I think you're also wrong on this, and I'd love to see your source to back this up - However, it's really irrelevant to this arguement.

The real issue is 'why pay FX rates at all'. By choosing to put all your Irish euro spending on a US-based credit card, you are incurring FX rates of 1.75% to 2.65% on each transaction. To pay your bill, you are going to have to convert your Irish euro income into US dollars each month, incurring additional FX fees. This will exceed the €40 per annum stamp duty very quickly.

It would be far cheaper to get an Irish credit card and avoid all FX fees.

mike65

Got my credit card statement yesterday and there it ws €40 for...for what exactly? :mad: I saw in the Sundays papers that something like 100,000 credit cards have been returned/cancelled/cut up since the new charges came into being. At this rate Charlie will be costing the government money not making any...

http://www.examiner.ie/pport/web/ireland/Full_Story/did-sgZj8uBOYQpJwsgHuTLc4nqWo2.asp

Mike.

yankinlk

exactly.

As far as the exchange rates issue goes - I guess the fact that my wife works in the bank helps on that side of it so Ill give you the argument that its better for "you" to get an irish card.

But seeing as how I dont pay "any" fees including laser charges etc the fact is I dont know how "anyone" can survive over here with everyone "in their pockets" nipping at their money.

RainyDay

As far as the exchange rates issue goes - I guess the fact that my wife works in the bank helps on that side of it so Ill give you the argument that its better for "you" to get an irish card.

Hi Yanklink - Don't get all coy & vague on me now. What exactly are you saying here?

Are you telling us that bank staff don't get charged FX commissions on foreign credit card debits?

Are you telling us that your wife's bank allows her to make FX payments without incurring any fees?

yankinlk

look relax have a good weekend, ill look into it next week and better defend my position...i still recon its cheaper to use a us card than an irish one. im not saying you should use a credit card like a laser card, but for larger purchases its a better deal.

if i pay fx rates they still dont compare to the greatly reduced interest rate, no annual fee. as well as the fact that i daily watch the euro/dollar exchange rate and that my debt goes up and down ie 89cents last year to 110 this year. it all adds up.

RainyDay

look relax have a good weekend,

I'm quite relaxed, thanks - & I'll continue to have a great weekend.

ill look into it next week and better defend my position

Great - I look forward to seeing some facts next week, rather than vague, shifting arguements

i still recon its cheaper to use a us card than an irish one.

For the benefit of other posters who may be considering following your advice, can you clarify whether you think this benefit applies only to insiders who's wives work in banks, or to the general population as a whole.

im not saying you should use a credit card like a laser card, but for larger purchases its a better deal.

What has the size of the transaction got to do with it? How does it matter if it's a large or a small purchase? FX commissions are percentage-based, so size doesn't matter a whit.

if i pay fx rates they still dont compare to the greatly reduced interest rate

I was kind-of assuming that most people clear their credit-card bills each month. Credit cards are a very expensive form of lending. You should really do everything you can to clear your credit card bills each month, unless of course, you like donating your hard-earned cash to increase bank profits.

no annual fee.

The annual stamp duty is now €40. If you're paying (and this is very low estimate) 1% FX charge on each transaction and you spend €500 per month on your card, you're paying about €60 per annum in FX fees. So it's not cheaper, it's dearer. And that's ignoring any FX fees you incur in paying your bill each month.

as well as the fact that i daily watch the euro/dollar exchange rate and that my debt goes up and down ie 89cents last year to 110 this year.

If you want to speculate on currency markets, you don't need to have a US-based credit card. Just buy a load of dollars (or yen, or zlotys), stick them under the bed, and wait for them to rise. Of course, unless you are in possession of a crystal ball, you have no real idea whether that currency is going to rise or to fall. The fact that the dollar has fallen against the euro over the last year does not make it a good idea to use a US-based credit card for your spending.

it all adds up

Not really - Would you like to show us a worked example showing how this saved you money?

Cheers - RainyDay

yankinlk

If you want to speculate on currency markets, you don't need to have a US-based credit card. Just buy a load of dollars (or yen, or zlotys), stick them under the bed, and wait for them to rise. Of course, unless you are in possession of a crystal ball, you have no real idea whether that currency is going to rise or to fall. The fact that the dollar has fallen against the euro over the last year does not make it a good idea to use a US-based credit card for your spending.

okayyyyy, now who is living in reality? If i had the money to buy us cash and stick it under the bed i certainly wouldnt need to use a credit card. the whole point of using my us card is that i buy LARGE purchases like say 2000 on flights and maybe another 2000 on clothes i spend on my shopping trip.

then, when i have the money saved after each paycheck, i pay it all off as quick as i can (not the end of the month). the interest rate is quite low on the card so as long as i dont let it get out of control (i have 2 cards with over 15000 combined credit and never ever gone above 4000) i am fine.

i dont spend 500/month on a regular basis and never suggested to anyone to do that. thats what me laser is for.

RainyDay

Hi Yanklink

Obviously my ironic tone didn't come through in my post. I wasn't seriously recommending that anyone gets into currency speculation. My comments were in response to your statement that your debts had gone down because the dollar had weakened. If you're recommending a similar approach to others, then this is currency speculation - It may pay off if the dollar continues to weaken. It may fail miserable if the dollar recovers. I certainly wouldn't recommend this kind of currency speculation to the average punter - success in this area is a matter of luck, no more, no less.

then, when i have the money saved after each paycheck, i pay it all off as quick as i can (not the end of the month). the interest rate is quite low on the card so as long as i dont let it get out of control (i have 2 cards with over 15000 combined credit and never ever gone above 4000) i am fine.

I've no problem with this approach, but why the hell would you want a US-based card to do this? Are you telling us that the difference between the US interest rates and Irish interest rates is large enough to justify incurring additional FX charges. You can get Irish cards with 0%-2% interest for six-month introductory periods and 12%-14% rates for normal spending. What rates are you paying on your US cards?

Kept my american plastic - at $0 annual fee, low interest rate = 2% - 12%, and $5000-$15000 limit. My advice, get yourself an address in the states (a freind, relative, po box, whatever) and use your good credit to get real spending power. they give credit cards out in gumball machines over there.

Surely you'd need more than a US-address to get a US credit card. Wouldn't you need a US social security number? Wouldn't you need some US credit history (at a minimum, evidence of having a checking account/current account open for 6-12 months). I can't see how this would work for the average punter.

i dont spend 500/month on a regular basis and never suggested to anyone to do that.

Fair enough, but if you spend €4000 per annum on flights/cloths as you've described above, you'll still be better off with an Irish card, as the cost of the stamp duty will be outweighed by the saving on FX charges.

You might also tell us how you make US dollar payments to your US dollar credit card account.

Cheers - RainyDay