Many years ago this "0% transfer" stuff was relatively new in the UK and a new outfit wanted to break into the market, they had two ideas which I guess they had costed as marketing ploys. First, the cards were a weird shape, this means there are a few applications where your card doesn't work, which is slightly annoying, but it's balanced by the brand recognition. Nobody cares which brand of rectangular plastic card you... oh, that's a weird shape.
But the Second was the easiest possible 0% transfer. To effect the transfer they write you a cheque for however much they'd agreed (let's say £1000) and you use that cheque to pay off a card or other line of credit. They charge 0% on this for 12 months.
What I, and lots of poor but money-savvy people did was sign up for the card. Deposit the cheque in an interet-bearing savings account, and set an alarm to pay the card off before that 0% expired.
So twelve months later you've made say £30 interest and you cut the card up. I don't know how many people did this, versus how many engaged with their product as they'd imagined. I know only two things:
1. I had about 50p outstanding balance to pay on my 12 month card, I figured they'd tell me I need to pay 50p within 30 days or whatever and if not they'd charge me extra - nope, they wrote saying "Your balance is negligible, we write off this tiny balance and don't expect to ever hear from you again".
2. This offer was never repeated. They did other 0% transfer offers but the "It's just a cheque" idea was never attempted again.
Comments
That very much depends.
Many years ago this "0% transfer" stuff was relatively new in the UK and a new outfit wanted to break into the market, they had two ideas which I guess they had costed as marketing ploys. First, the cards were a weird shape, this means there are a few applications where your card doesn't work, which is slightly annoying, but it's balanced by the brand recognition. Nobody cares which brand of rectangular plastic card you... oh, that's a weird shape.
But the Second was the easiest possible 0% transfer. To effect the transfer they write you a cheque for however much they'd agreed (let's say £1000) and you use that cheque to pay off a card or other line of credit. They charge 0% on this for 12 months.
What I, and lots of poor but money-savvy people did was sign up for the card. Deposit the cheque in an interet-bearing savings account, and set an alarm to pay the card off before that 0% expired.
So twelve months later you've made say £30 interest and you cut the card up. I don't know how many people did this, versus how many engaged with their product as they'd imagined. I know only two things:
1. I had about 50p outstanding balance to pay on my 12 month card, I figured they'd tell me I need to pay 50p within 30 days or whatever and if not they'd charge me extra - nope, they wrote saying "Your balance is negligible, we write off this tiny balance and don't expect to ever hear from you again".
2. This offer was never repeated. They did other 0% transfer offers but the "It's just a cheque" idea was never attempted again.