Late Payment Fees Reduced on Store Credit Cards

Barclays has just announced that their Clydesdale Financial Services would be slashing their credit card late payment charge from 22.50 to 12 pounds. The prompt for this change was the OFT looking in to consumer complaints that these fees were too large. A ruling that was offered in 2006 said that the credit card fees were higher than fair according to the cost of the actual late fee paper work and processing.

The OFT is very happy to see that Barclays has decided to lower the fees that Clydesdale Financial Services is charging. Clydesdale or Barclays has been running store cards for Jessops, Hobbs, Karen Millen and Viyella. They believed that their charges were fair and very clear in the agreement, but with the newest case in court at the moment Barclays felt they had to yield to the OFT pressure.

A spokesperson from BPF, renamed from Clydesdale, believes that they had the right to charge the higher fee and that they didn’t agree with the OFT’s legal analysis regarding the needed change. They were very clear to their consumers about the charge they would have if they were late on a payment. According to Barclay the fees are transparent, legal, and definitely something that can be avoided.

The person holding the card just needs to pay on time. The other part of the issue was the high interest rates being charged by the store cards. According, to some, the high interest rates more than, made up for the late fees being charged. The high interest rates were part of the problem in getting the payments in on time for some.

In fact the interest rates on store cards through these companies were higher than any regular credit card being issues. The store card then offers a higher than fair penalty fee and that is how the OFT made their case. The good news is that the trouble has been resolved to some satisfaction for the consumers and OFT. So if you have one of these cards you don’t have to worry about some of the unfair fees.