Charity mawls credit card applicants with poor history

The World WildLife Fund which uses its own credit card advertising cuddly pictures of endangered animals like pandas and polar bears to raise money is fleecing people with poor credit histories by offering them an alternative card with an APR rate of a whopping 39.9%.

Having turned down applications at the advertised rate of 15.9% and a three percent on balance transfers, the charity then sends an email offering the alternative card The Vanquis which it boasts no annual fee, “free” additional cards but the massive repayment rate and no obvious links to the charity donations or to helping save wildlife..

The card is currently administered by MBNA whose platinum card with an APR also of 15.9% is listed as one of the top 10 credit cards on CompareandSave.com.

MBNA then sends a second sales email also soliciting sales for the 39.9% product Vanquis “which we have a relationship” claiming it takes five minutes to fill in the form and you get an answer in one minute.” Vanquis is owned by Provident Financial.
Vanquis claims to have helped more than 300,000 people who have poor credit ratings and have been turned down elsewhere. The credit agreement covers a year so effectively customers are locked into the rate for a year. On some of its higher tiers the APR gets even more rapacious. Its Tier E) which is its highest rate offers:

• Purchase/Balance Transfer annual rate 59.94%
• Cheque annual rate 69.51%
• Cash annual rate 74.75%

So on £1500 for a year that costs £416.94