Congratulations to Barclays; I spotted its latest loan deal as a full page ad in the newspaper. It said “If you find a better deal elsewhere we’ll pay you the difference.”
Now, I’m not a fan of ‘price-beater’ deals; all they do is make you think you’re getting a good deal whilst actually just providing the company with the surety of offering any price it likes; the worse case scenario is it’ll have to be as cheap as its opposition. Yet, as the rate was 7.4% and it applies to loans of over £7,500 my thought was “aha! You can get it for 6.5% from Sainsbury’s; (see cheap loans article) is it possible to falsely take out the loan, show it the Sainsbury quote, get the difference back, then pay off the loan early and still make a profit?”
So I read the t&cs, where of course I was expecting to find some form of early settlement charge which should’ve impacted it somewhat, but Barclays seem to have gone a step further; thinking through all the loophole options and writing a raft of terms to prevent them, the most important being that the cashback is paid by the month, which makes it totally unworkable.
Well done Barclays, thankfully most others companies (and even other departments of Barclays) still have a long way to go before closing off loopholes.
