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I have a technical question regarding how balances of different categories are handled according to the Credit Card Act of 2009 rules. I performed a promotional balance transfer at a reduced rate in February, followed by substantial purchases then the statement cut and I was charged interest on the balance transfer portion only. Before the statement due date, I paid the prior statement balance in full (PIF) leaving a new balance less than the amount of the original balance transfer offer, reflecting purchases since the prior statement. For the remaining balance, should it be treated as purchases or as balance transfer. I would think common sense would dictate purchases, but according to the lender it is as balance transfer. If it were as purchases and I paid it in full by the next statement due date, I would expect no interest to accrue. If not, then I could pay the minimum amount due and have the whole balance at the promotional rate. I thought that the credit card act stipulates that higher interest rate balances are paid off first, but for purchases under the grace period, the rate is effectively 0%, but if you do not pay during the grace period, it would then be much higher than the promotional rate. I know from other experience where you have already lost the grace period rules, and thus purchases are from day one accruing interest, that you can nix these by paying the minimum due plus an additional amount to cover the purchases and the purchases get wiped out, leaving the lower rate balance transfer, but in this case, since I still have grace period, I would think it would be the other way around. I asked the representative to note what they told me on my account in case they were wrong. We will know for sure when the next statement cuts, but I'm curious what others think is the correct handling of this according to the credit card act.

I got some Capital One balance transfer offers that offered 0% for 12 months and 2% and 3% fees. The offers had an expiration date after which the checks are treated as purchases. I called up and confirmed there is no fee if after the expiration date and they are just like a purchase, so I intentionally waited until after the offer expired and maxed out both accounts to build history for free and planned to PIF. Unfortunately, Capital One failed to inform me that they add a ten day grace period onto their offers, in fact the first level CSR declared I used them before the grace period expired and quoted an offer date ten days later. It was only when I spoke with a supervisor that they informed me of the grace period and how they were doing me a 'favor'. I was able to get them to take corrective action and make me whole again, but it used up about half an hour of my time, so I'm posting this here to alert others to this 'feature' of their balance transfer offer checks.

Back in mid-January, my DW did a NFCU balance transfer at 0% to pay down her three student PLUS loans at MOHELA. In the payments, the account number and sequence number for the three loans were given. MOHELA returned two of the payments because they want just the account number, not account number plus loan sequence number. The third payment was not returned and not credited to the account either. We notified NFCU of our dispute through their online message system in mid-February. NFCU says the payment went through and that they contacted MOHELA to investigate. MOHELA states it can take 60 business days to answer such an inquiry. However, calling MOHELA myself, they state that there is no money to return because they never received any and they would have attached it to our account since the account number is at the beginning. Do rules regarding credit card purchases apply to balance transfers? How can I dispute this charge to protect ourselves here? NFCU refused to provide a provisional credit and said MOHELA must return the money before they will do anything. How can I track where the money has gone? I just asked NFCU to provide copies of any cancelled checks, hopefully it was not electronic.