Tipping the balance

[markieboy]

i am contemplating transferring my current credit card balance to a termed, no interest, credit card option that is popular at the moment, not being the sharpest money  minded being, are these genuine offers, or are there pitfalls, or small print i need to be aware of. The potential company is a nationally known supplier.

[Oneeyedvic]

2 potential pitfalls - firstly there will probably be a charge of 2%.

Secondly, if you have say �1000 outstanding an transfer that accross, that �1000 will be interest free for a certain period. Unfortunately, if you buy anything else, or take out money (if that is not on an interest free basis), you are stuffed (for example lets say you take a cash advance of �200) - they will charge you interest on that amount and if you pay off �200 in month one, they will deduct this from the interest free money - so you will be paying interest on the �200.

I hope this makes sense.

 

incidentally, if you do read the small print, it is well worth getting these cards. Persoanlly I 'surf' my cards every few months - this means I pay no interest at all - but then I do read the small print very carefully

[twiglet4frog]

i agree with one eyed civicy person. If u keep moving your money from one interest free credit card to another u wont ever have to pay interest charges but u need to read the small print on everything to make it work, dont get into a agreement with 6 months interest free and later on find that the small print charges u a big percentage if u move it within 12 months etc!! only 2 or 3 cards will make it easy for u but u have to keep checking them in case they change there offers. It takes a lot of checking terms and conditions and checking your finances and being in a very organised way. Great if u can do this but a lot of people are in debt simply because they arent that organised and great with finances. So sometimes it is just easier and simpler and sometimes cheaper to find a very low rate of interest card and stick with that as long as u can

[lady_p_gold]

Another one to watch out for (which happened to me) is that I filled out all the paperwork etc. and because I had quite a large balance they only took some of it, even though I had requested to transfer all of it.  They said that I had not hard the card long enough to warrant such a large transfer (well I wouldn't have had would I as I was taking out for the first time !) so then I ended up with the original card with some on and then a new card with some on which was not what I wanted at all