virgin credit cards (Virgin Mastercard)

Member Name: sma123

Product:	Virgin Mastercard
Date:	26/11/08 (115 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: 0% deal for a decent period of time

Disadvantages: hearing of the hike in interest rates after 0% deal ends.

I've had this credit card for nearly a year now and yes you can probably guess I got it originally because of the 0% deal and needing to do a balance transfer from one of my other credit cards.

At first I thought great ill get this paid off way before the 0% deal runs out until I missed a payment all because I didn't set up a direct debit because I wanted to make extra payments ect.

Anyway I missed the payment and got charged then on as the missed payment cancelled my 0% deal and I started paying normal interest which was probably working out that I was actually only paying a couple of quid off my card, at this point I could have cried because I still had 6months left of the deal.

So because I didn't know at the time why I was being charged I rang virgin who were actually very helpful, they asked why I had missed the payment and did I want to set up a direct debit whilst I was on the phone, which I did.

I think because they could see it was a genuine mistake and I was putting it right with the set up of direct debit they gave me my 0% deal back for the remainder of my 0%deal, so I was very happy and pleased with their service.

Now though I have been reading reviews and have noticed a lot of people saying that once your 0% deal ends they hike up your interest rates to something ridiculous like 30%, I really hope they don't do this as my 0% deal ends in April 2009 and im struggling to make a dent in it now let alone with a percentage rate like that.

Also due to the credit crunch I am not able to get any more 0% deals on other credit cards which means I can't do any more balance transfers.

I will keep this updated like if virgin do increase my interest rates after my 0% deal ends.

Summary: customer service have been very helpful so far.