We have all seen those Citibank ads that show the beautiful people enjoying life with credit cards, implying that swap you credit card for a CitiBank card, transfer the balance and life is great. Finder.com.au has a similar story.
So I tried it, Finder.com.au. Did an application directly from their website for a Bank, lets call that bank W. So here is what happened. Completed the app in 10 minutes, got an email to say I was pre-approved and a list of documents required to complete the deal.
Downloaded the statements, send to W, and waited, called them, got a call centre that didn’t sound Australian, but thats ok. It seamed like we were working from 2 different application forms. Here’s an example. (Him) Where is the rent from you investment property on your statement. I can only see 1 payment. (Me) Correct, look at the last business day of the month, Deposit from L J Hooker. (Him) Where are the other weeks payments ( Me) the managing agent only pays me once a month. This went on for a while. I think in total I made 4 calls, send the same documents twice. We got their in the end.
So whats the outcome look like. Well the old Credit Card was not paid off in full, I know, very bad and the interest was 21%. so about 200-300 per month in interest. The new card has 2 years 0% interest on balance transfers. so in theory thats about 5k saved.
We shall see if works out. My kids pay board to the credit card account so they are reducing the amount for me.
Update ##
So the new Credit Card provider only allows 80% of the debt to be rolled over and they have no control over the closing of the old credit card. So it would be possible ( but very irresponsible) to not reduce the limit on the 1st card, it would be so easy to into further difficulty.