topic Re: Balance transfer question in Credit Cards

Balance transfer question

sarux3 — Sun, 07 Sep 2014 13:21:14 GMT

Last billing cycle, DW had transferred $1500 off her Capital One card, leaving about $150 that I later PIF'd. Both transactions happened prior to the due date and no other transactions happened during the billing cycle (including the period between the due date and the statement closing date), so the next statement should have reported a $0 balance, right? Nope -- checked this morning and there's a $17 interest charge sitting there. Is this due to some policy about handling balance transfers that I was not aware of? It's not a big deal since $17 is pretty easy to squeeze into the budget, but I'd like to know for the future...

Re: Balance transfer question

Anonymous — Sun, 07 Sep 2014 13:26:04 GMT

You are paying the interest on the balance that you had from when the prior statement cut until you paid it off.

Re: Balance transfer question

sarux3 — Sun, 07 Sep 2014 13:42:32 GMT

@MstrPTato wrote:
You are paying the interest on the balance that you had from when the prior statement cut until you paid it off.

So I gathered But in my prior experience, if I paid off a card before the due date, accrued interest from the current cycle would not be charged. This led me to think that maybe CapOne doesn't apply that policy to amounts that are transferred off to another company..? Or perhaps they have a different interest-charging policy that's more like what you said?

Re: Balance transfer question

Creditaddict — Sun, 07 Sep 2014 15:30:34 GMT

had you just charged the balance on the cap1 or was that a revolving balance from previous months. NEW charges would have the grace period to pay that you are thinking of with no interest but if the balance was already revolving for at least a month you would pay interest on that portion of the balance.

Re: Balance transfer question

barbaralee — Sun, 07 Sep 2014 15:46:30 GMT

Were you paying cash advance interest? Interest on cash advance or balance transfers are applied daily, so if you pay off the card you will still have some dreg of interest to pay off. If you look on your credit card statement you will see it is itemized between regular purchases interest, and cash advance/balance transfers interest. Balance transfers are treated as cash advances, so anytime you pay off a cash advance or balance transfer you can expect carry over interest. I would check your statement and see if your balance was being charged cash advance.

I would also call them and ask them to waive the interest. Pretty sure they will do it, and it doesn't hurt to ask.

Re: Balance transfer question

sarux3 — Sun, 07 Sep 2014 18:10:39 GMT

It was balance carried forward, not new purchases, and it was all purchase balance, no cash advances. So, now I can see the distinction, thanks for all your input everyone! Sure enough, I can actually see the statement now that CapOne's site is running again, and its fine print clarifies that only new purchases would have the interest waived if the card is PIF by the due date, just as you all said. So if I'm trying to pay off cards that had a carrying balance, I will need to pay more than the total balance by the statement closing date if I want the statement to report $0, is that right?