Which? attacks credit card fees

[Legal Beagles]

Credit card firms have raised numerous charges for using their cards in the past year, according to Which?

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[Amethyst]

Re: Which? attacks credit card fees

Credit card companies have raised numerous charges for using their cards in the past year, according to the consumers' association Which? It says that since the Office of Fair Trading ordered a cut in default fees to £12 last year, "ingenious methods" had been used to recoup the income.
Which? lists 10 changes, including the introduction of low-usage fees.
But the banking industry denied it had acted unfairly and said different fees were inevitable after the OFT ruling.
'Ingenious methods'
Among the charges highlighted by Which? are low-usage fees, raised interest rates for withdrawing cash, and annual fees for having a card.
We have been much more upfront about how charges are applied


Sandra Quinn, Apacs


"Credit card providers seem to be resorting to a raft of ingenious methods to recoup lost revenue following the OFT crackdown on penalty fees," said Martyn Hocking, editor of Which? Money.
But the banking industry denied it had been doing anything wrong.
"We always said that charges would change as a result of the OFT ruling," said Sandra Quinn of the UK payments association Apacs.
"We have been much more upfront about how charges are applied - every statement now has a summary box listing charges and key information about charging," she said.
Higher charges
In March, the financial information service Moneyfacts reported that six major credit cards had raised various charges, such as their interest rates for cash withdrawals, using the card abroad, or by introducing shorter interest-free periods.
In May, Barclaycard, the UK's biggest credit card issuer, said it might start charging up to one million customers as much as £20 a year unless they started using their cards more often.
The bank was following the example of Lloyds-TSB which in February, started levying £35 a year on "low users".
The desire of the banks to recover income lost after the OFT ruling was highlighted by the HBOS group earlier this year which admitted that the cut in the level of credit card default fees would result in it losing £60m in income in 2007.
But Apacs pointed out that some credit card charges were effectively optional.
"Six out of 10 credit card users pay off in full each month anyway, so they don't pay some of these charges," said Sandra Quinn.
No more rate-tarts
One way in which credit card issuers have saved themselves money is by finally abandoning their favourite marketing tactic of the past few years - interest free deals on balance transfers.
In some cases these offers lasted for more than a year and led to hundreds of thousands of people becoming so-called "rate tarts", moving their credit card debts from one card to another on the expiry of each interest free offer.
Although some interest free deals are still around, they have now become more expensive because card companies now typically charge a transfer fee upfront, usually of 2.5-3% of the balance being moved.
The credit card industry is already under pressure to adopt a standard method for calculating the annual rate of interest - known as the APR - being applied to each card.
Following a complaint from Which? in April, the OFT said it would investigate the issue.
Which? complained that there were at least 12 different methods in use for calculating an APR, making the concept meaningless for comparing the real cost of using one card with another.