This is a post I saw on a betfair forum which I thought might be useful to share.
It appears that the Dept of Fair Trades has ruled this late payment charge obscene and illegal. When the news came out yesterday they advised that people who have been hit by the late charges to contact their credit card company and demand they repay the fee. Under the data protection act they are obliged to inform you of ALL late payment charges going back 6 years if you ask for them.
My friend phoned his cards customer service dept last night and they had obviously become aware of this news and offered to refund my last £20 late charge adding that the company is reviewing its policy on late charges and they will inform everyone of the outcome. I could tell that they where happy with me leaving it at that but I got the feeling that if I had pushed it a little further and demanded ( as advised by the fair trades) that they refund every late payment charge I could have obtained them. They are clearly rattled by this announcement and obviously know they are in trouble.
You don’t very often get a chance of getting free (sort of) money so go get it !!!
http://www.bankactiongroup.co.uk/
Summary
Credit cards are still some of the best financial products out there but only if you use them correctly and can control your spending. And while it’s hard to have much sympathy for anyone that keeps missing the payment date, it is often very unfair to penalise so heavily a person who misses a payment by a day often for a very good reason.
This is why the Office of Fair Trading should be applauded for fighting on behalf of the consumer, something in our opinion they should do more of.
Final Point - If you do get late charges or any other charges that you believe are unfair (plus you don’t have a history of late payments etc) then you’ve most probably got a better than 50% chance of getting them wiped
Just call, be polite and ask - you’d be surprised just how effect this kind of strategy is
01/05/2006 at 05:24 pm
Of course, people who are charged obscene amounts of money for missing payments deserve to be charged don’t they Brian?
After all it’s obviously your own fault, why waste all your time and effort to get your money back when arguably you are not entitled to?
Or does this just apply to Airlines? I detect a little… hypocracy?