Thousands of credit card customers have been dismayed to find that the APR charged on their accounts has been suddenly raised, in some cases to beyond the 30% mark. Chief culprit appears to be MBNA who have even hit customers with a whopping 34.9% APR, even when the customer claims to have had no problems with their account and no history of late payments or defaults.
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Low-risk credit card holders are facing fees, credit limit cuts or even account closure as credit companies seek to cut costs and increase revenue.
Police have issued a warning about a new scam which targets personal and business credit card holders.
The alert was broadcast after a business owner from Chester was contacted by telephone by a person who claimed to be a representative of the Cheshire Police press office. The caller proceeded to demand payment by credit card for advertisements in a police publication.
Despite the recent fiasco over the ditching of 160,000 loyal customers, and the resulting bad press, Egg remains one of the most widely recognised credit card brands in the UK today. Even though nowadays it’s offering is less than spectacular, it is still a fairly popular card - in no small part to the widespread publicity it has received over the years just because of its name. After all, what blogger or journalist can resist showing off their writing prowess by producing a teeth-grindingly awful pun as the headline?
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has again criticised card card issuers for making their products too complicated and hard to compare. The chief complaint was that the way a card’s APR was calculated was done in 12 different ways among the top 20 card providers, effectively making APR meaningless as a comparison point when choosing a new card.
A senior MP has suggested that some credit card companies are withdrawing their services from people who keep their borrowing to a minimum, while generating hefty profits from those who borrow more recklessly. John McFall, chairman of the treasury select committee, said that if banks were canceling the accounts of reliable repayers while continuing to profit from those who ran up significant debts, then their business methods would ‘have to be called into question’.
The Co-operative Bank have launched a new credit card that rewards ethical consumerism with a lower interest rate. The ‘Think’ card features a standard rate of 14% typical APR, but for purchases at certain designated ‘ethical’ partners the rate is halved to just 7%.
A survey by financial site Money Supermarket has estimated that one in four credit card customers have had to pay at least one penalty fee over the last twelve months.
Even after the OFT ruling that such fees were ‘disproportionately high’ and subsequently capped at £12, the UK credit card industry is said to rake in £230m a year by charging for missed or late payments.
The latest figures from payments association Apacs show a steep rise in credit card fraud committed overseas using UK-issued cards, and holidaymakers are being warned to keep a close eye on their plastic.
A total of £118.2m of such overseas fraud was committed last year, which represented a rise of £36 over the year before.
The launch of a new ‘3 in 1′ payment card from Barclaycard gets nearer with the launch of a pre-registration option for people wishing to express their interest in applying before the final launch.
The new card will combine an ordinary Barclaycard Visa, an Oyster card for use on public transport in London, and a new OneTouch contactless payment system which allows cardholders to pay for transactions under £10 by simply swiping their card.