There is a great gulf between dog and man. We can't understand why they pee on the carpet. They ca...
There is a great gulf between dog and man. We can't understand why they pee on the carpet. They can't understand why we pee in their water bowl.
Member since:19.07.2001
Reviews:233
Members who trust:629
A credit card is a credit card, isn't it? They're all much the same, aren't they? They all go into shops and spend more money than you intended and then ask you for the cash once you've forgotten that you spent the money in the first place. Well they all work on the same basis but some are better than others and this is one of the better ones.
First of all who is Egg? Back in October 1998 Prudential created Egg as an e-commerce company and in June 2000 it was floated on the London Stock Exchange. It has over a million customers and a staff of over 2000 working from offices in London, Derby and Dudley. They operate 24 hours a day, every day and you can manage your account via their website, via a WAP enabled mobile, over the telephone or even on digital TV. Royal Mail doesn't feature in their business plan other than as the carrier of your card in the first place and then the odd bit of advertising material.
Your application for a credit card is made via the website. There's currently an offer of 0% interest on balance transfers and new purchases for six months. After that it's the standard
variable rate of 13.9% APR (from 17 May 2002, but not notified to customers until mid June), compared to Barclaycard's 18.9%. There's no annual fee but be aware though that there's a cash withdrawal fee of 1.25% subject to a minimum charge of £2 and £20 charges if you're late in making a payment, you exceed your limit or a direct debit is unpaid.
As financial websites go this is good; it won the yell.com award for The Best Finance Site in 2001. My application for a card took me about ten minutes and the process seems to be substantially the same two years later. To apply you need to be at least 18 years of age, and permanently resident in the UK. You must have a bank or building society account which accepts Direct Debits. You need regular access to the Internet supported by 128 bit SSL encryption for security and to be contactable by e mail. When making the application you'll need to have available your Bank or Building Society account details for the Direct Debit, details of your income and your employer's address. You'll need to provide details of the addresses at which you've lived over the last two years.
When the application is submitted Egg will automatically run a credit check on you and the fact that this has been done will show on your credit file. I got an immediate decision including the credit limit that I wanted without a quibble. The card arrived through the post a few days later and I had to revisit the site to activate it.
Security on the site (which loads quite quickly despite the graphics) is excellent. To enter you have to give your name (making certain that you use exactly the name in which you made the application and not a diminutive or initials), date of birth, (on drop-downs, which are less-easily traceable than keyboard entries) your postcode and then your mother's maiden name and a password. On such occasions I never use my mother's maiden name as it's too easily traceable. After all, anyone who knows my cousin knows my mother's maiden name, so I use a different name. Effectively it's a second password but less guessable than one which most people could discover with a little research.
Statements (including all past statements) are available on the site. You receive an e mail telling you that the statement is there and an invitation to go and visit it. I always expect to be offered a cup of tea and a biscuit! I chose to have my statement towards the end of the month and to make payments just after the beginning of the next month as I find that this allows me to manage my finances most effectively, but you can set it up to suit yourself. I always try and organise major purchases so that they fall just after the statement date which maximises the time that I have the money sitting in the Bank earning me money!
You can chose your monthly payment and even change it from month to month. My account is set up so that the full amount is transferred in from my current account each month, but I could change it to making a payment of as little as 2% (subject to a £5 minimum) of the outstanding balance if that was what I needed. There is a facility to make additional payments in the course of the month, although I have never had cause to use this, so I can't comment on its effectiveness, but the procedure does seem straight forward.
If, like me, you repay the full balance each month there is little to distinguish the no-fee cards from each other, but the point which attracted me to Egg was the offer of cashback. Egg is now offering 0.5% of all purchases as a cashback, credited to your account each September, subject to a minimum of £5. There's no carry forward either so if your credit card spending is going to be less than £1000 in the year you won't qualify for the cashback. Last year when the cashback was 1% my credit meant that I had a week's free groceries in September. Very Useful!
I liked the 1% cashback. Well, it's difficult to dislike it isn't it? Then in September 2001 I got an e mail from Egg which began "We've been listening to you guys..." Now I always feel nervous when a financial institution addresses me in that way, not least because I wouldn't pass the medical. I feel that the basis of our relationship has been misunderstood by them, besides which, they hadn't been listening to what I'd been saying because I would have told them that the rewards that they were offering me in exchange for the reduction in cashback were of no use to me. My friend tells me that she will get some use out of the travel insurance that's offered, but I'm afraid I won't and nor did the wine offer appeal. One problem that I have is that it's very difficult to find out from the website exactly what is on offer and I'm always left with the feeling that there might be something that I've missed somewhere. Egg is just a little bit coy on this subject.
So, what else do you get? Well, there's free purchase protection for goods in transit. This means that your purchases, provided that they cost £25 or more are covered against damage, loss or theft before you get them home or for up to thirty days, whichever is first. The limit of the cover is £1000. There's also Egg Wallet. Egg has a link up with certain retailers and if you want to purchase from them you can do this via Egg and there will be no need to give your credit card number to the retailer. The principle is good, but the list of retailers who've joined up is limited - in fact the only one that rang a bell with me was CD-Wow, but more are promised. Considering that Egg will also be receiving commission from the retailers the fact that you still only get 0.5% as a cashback seems less than generous.
The account has operated well. In eighteen months I've never had cause to contact them. Every purchase has appeared correctly in the account and every DirectDebit has gone through on the correct day in the correct amount. I can't fault them. My friend had a problem when the Direct Debits weren't being credited to her account but Egg sorted the problem quickly and were most apologetic.
I'm sticking with Egg for the moment, but I have to admit that it's partly down to lethargy and current commitments, but soon I will be doing a bit of financial spring cleaning and looking to see if there's a better cashback deal that works as well as Egg.
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been with egg for ages. love the money manager feature and their savings a/c
dreamerz 09.07.2002 16:45
Rather good as ever Sue...I'm with Cahoot personally. Egg do sound attractive, however, for some reason despite a decent credit rating (I hope *g*), good income and few large outstanding debts Egg turned me down. *grrr*
SusanLesley 07.07.2002 09:44
I've got the Egg savings account and I am very impressed with it, Susan
Advantages: Simple application process. Very flexible personal finance. Low APR Disadvantages: Telesales staff very pushy with the payment protection sales.
alflavor 22.09.2001 ·
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