MBNA personal loans

Advantages: Ease of application
Disadvantages: Poor organisation, customer care. Incorrect outstanding balance. Incorrect default letters.

...I took out an MBNA (then VIrgin) personal loan 4 years ago. The ease of the application at that time was good and the money came promptly. I am now told that you cannot get this loan via Virgin any more. I made payments regularly for 4 years and I now have another year to run. However in July last year I had problems due to the fact that somebody else owed me money and a payment was returned by my bank (NatWest). For this I received 38 pound charge from my bank and a default charge from MBNA. This happened again the next month (already therefore 126 in charges) and I was telephoned by MBNA where I live in Greece. I explained the situation and the girl was in fact sympathetic and I made a payment by debit card then and it was decided to spread the other outstanding payment over 2 months on top of my regular payment. The lady then...

Phweeter 04.05.2009 · Read review
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Review of MBNA International Bank Loans

MBNA Credit Cards

Advantages: Good intro rate, good customer service, Credit card chequebook
Disadvantages: Poor "normal" rate, no incentives (e.g. cashback), no Internet presence

...MBNA International Bank are best known for their wide range of credit cards. They do many "affiliate" cards such as alumni cards for staff and students of universities, as well as their own-brand Silver, Gold and Platinum cards. I had a Silver card with them originally, and now have an MBNA Platinum card. In the time that I have been a customer of theirs, I have found that their staff are very helpful, my account has been run smoothly, and their automated telephone service is quick and easy to use, as well as being free (0800 number). They usually offer very good interest rates for the first 6 months that you hold an account with them (e.g. 3.9% APR for the Platinum card) but after this time it reverts to a not-very-competitive 18.9% MBNA can sometimes be persuaded to extend this for another 6 months, if you tell them...

madwolf 28.07.2000 · Read review
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Review of MBNA Platinum Card

MBNA - using them to make £hundreds for free

Advantages: MBNA are one of the most accessible banks around, and seem to want to please their customers
Disadvantages: Balance Transfer Fee, poor points scheme

...UPDATED 2002 and 2006: I won't repeat the detail of the many (100's?) of cards that MBNA issue (oh, ok, there are some at the bottom). They not only issue with their own name but 'affinity' cards for seemingly any organisation, where a small 'cut' goes to the organisation. The point of this op is to praise their customer services and the 'flexibility' (no pun intended) of their cards. I've held quite a few since MBNA came to Chester (early 90's?) and have always been satisfied at their low regular rates but especially their 'offer' rates. I use their cards to access cheap money. The more you borrow the more they offer. e.g. borrow, say £5k at 1.9% for 6 months, and then pay off in full before the rates rise. Their computer seems to say 'hey, this ones getting away. Lets dangle fresh worms' The week after paying off a balance like...

debcrane 04.05.2002 (08.01.2006) · Read review
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Review of MBNA Platinum Card

MBNA do not treat borrowers well

Advantages: none
Disadvantages: Arbitary charges and deductions

...MBNA are very unpleasant people to deal with. I lost my job and fell behind with payments - I never defaulted, it is all repaid - but I was late sometimes. MBNA began phoning repeatedly between 8am and 8pm. One of these harrasment calls I particularly remember. The harraser called and I explained that the money had left my bank account and was on it's way to them - this takes 4 working days in the UK. He then asked if I could make a payment by charge card immediately, then if I there was a family member who could, then if there was a friend who could then he asked again if I had paid. I explained again that I had and again the same questions were asked, and then again. The only way to end this was to hang up. Shortly after another phone call was placed to me, in which they complained that I had hung up on their previous call. These...

kpaterson 04.08.2008 · Read review
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Review of MBNA International Bank

Do not get into debt with MBNA .

Advantages: erm.......errr......nope can't think of any
Disadvantages: no help when in trouble, very bad customer services

...I got in to bad debt a few years back when I split with my husband. I had got to just under the limit on my card but because I couldn't afford all the payments ended up owing them an extra £900 on top of what I already owed over a very short period of time. I rang them and they just insisted I had to keep up the payments - so no use there. In the end I went on a debt management plan and I owed a lot of debts but out of the 10 organisations I owed debt to MBNA were the most totally unhelpful out of the lot of them. When you go on a DMP they ask all your creditors to take a reduced payment with no interest being incured so you can actually have money to live on and pay off your debts. MBNA were the only ones who would not remove the interest. For a short period of time I was paying them roughly £53 odd per month and they were...

Tussie69 03.08.2006 · Read review
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Review of MBNA International Bank

MBNA is POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE PERSONAFIED.

Advantages: None
Disadvantages: The worst Credit Card Company ever!!!

...I decided to take up the great offer of 9 months 0% interest on all balance transfers. All seems good so far, until you try to pay the monthly amount due. Shortly after recieving notification that the account was set up, I happily went on-line and set up my direct debit details to take the minimum monthly amount so as not to incur charges. A month later I receive a call from an indian call centre debt agency asking me why I had not paid and demanding payment immediately. I explained I had set up a DD to pay and they said it had nothing to do with them I should call Customer Services. I gave him my bank details (not sure I should have done that!) The next day I called MBNA and spent 28 mins in a queue waiting to get through, spoke to a nice lady who said she had to transfer me to another dept who would sort it all out. I then waited...

stevewaller86 20.07.2005 · Read review
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Review of MBNA International Bank

MBNA rising credit limits

Advantages: easy to get hold of
Disadvantages: no incentives

...I have been a MBNA customer for about 5 years and have seen a change in the way they do business. In the early days MBNA, flooded my doorstep with mail outs. Cheques to use to open an account, offers of credit cards. until one day i gave in and sent off for a card. To be fair to them the service was good, the card arrived quickly with a few credit cheques and all was well. But still the circulars kept coming and coming, it got to the stage that i was getting four or five a week offering me the same deal as i had. anyway for the first few months this was not a problem, but i got fed up with it after a while so started to phone them. All they could say was "its our marketing, we can't stop them sorry". So whats happened since i took out the card, the service has been good and i have enjoyed several credit limit rises (not all...

jasonevered 29.01.2001 · Read review
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Review of MBNA Platinum Card

MBNA - Very Impressive

Advantages: Excellent Customer Service, Good rates of Interest.
Disadvantages: Wouldent like to have to pay one of their late payment charges!

...Ive had an MBNA Credit Card for around two years now and just wanted to say how please I were with the service. I dont actually ever remember filling out an application form or enqiuring about getting an MBNA card, one just turned up in the post one day. I think I may have went to a concert down in London, had a few beers on the way down and got collered by someone trying to flog them at the area! Before that I had never heard of them! Whenever I have phoned up the customer service team have always been more than helpful! Its a freephone number and is 24 hours. However, the thing which really impressed me with MBNA were that around 6 months ago I moved house and were late with one of the payments due to the move. I had a letter from MBNA saying I would be charged a fairly high amount due to the late payment, so I phoned up...

MartinClark 14.03.2003 · Read review
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Review of MBNA Co-branded

mbna silver service

Advantages: excellent balance transfer apr
Disadvantages: they now charge a handling fee for cheques

...I have had a long association with MBNA, and have had several cards from them over the years, one of the most recent ones being their "silver card". They actually offered this card to me as an existing cardholder who may be wishing to have a further card to use for a specific purpose, ie for spending on motoring/petrol etc. Perhaps it is not very wise to have more than one card from a particular card issuer, but if you are careful with your spending, the MBNA cards offer some distinct advantages, the main one being the low apr for balance transfers, currently only 1.9%. This is useful for those who already have balances on other cards at less favourable rates, the transfers from these cards are easily done with a quick phone call once the account is activated. A word of warning here - if you are going to use the card for this...

suggo 11.05.2001 · Read review
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Review of MBNA Silver Card

No way, MBNA

Advantages: none
Disadvantages: everything

...The MBNA co-branded card looked a good option when compared to other cards available at the time I was applying. However I now wish I had choosen the competition. Since having the MBNA card I have had nothing but irritation from the bank. On such time was when on holiday in the Carribean. I needed to use the card as I had lost some money but the limit had been reached. So I called the bank several times to ask them to increase the limit on my account. Each time I called they said that a desicion could not be made for several hours. Eventually they declined my request to increase the limit. This all sounds fairly reasonable, despite all off my past payments had been made on time. However the real sting came when I arrived back in the UK to find after about a week a letter from MBNA offering me an increase in my credit limit by...

tubbynuts 07.03.2001 · Read review
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Review of MBNA Co-branded