The Dangers of Credit Card use, agreements today.

The Dangers of Credit Card use, agreements today.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BicCherry Man in dispute with broadband provider Recurring bill payment programme evokes dispute between customer and broadband provider. -TNP, Wed, Aug 18, 2010 The New Paper; By Nat Rudarakanchana HE HAD arranged for his Internet broadband bill to be automatically charged to his credit card every month. The arrangement, known as the recurring bill payment programme, worked fine until he had a billing dispute with his broadband provider last month. Mr Lim Heng Seng, 31, who works in healthcare, then called his bank, DBS, and asked them to cancel the billing arrangement. Imagine his surprise when he was told that he was not allowed to do so. Instead, it was the billing organisation - in this case, his broadband provider - that had the authority to stop the arrangement.... In the end, Mr Lim accepted the solution of cancelling his credit card and applying for a new one. He said: "Yet even if this solves the problem, it doesn't solve it in the right way. "I previously authorised a retailer to charge my credit card, but what if the relationship between myself and the company later changes? "I would be unable to cancel my billing arrangement without the retailer's agreement." Mr Lim also said that a DBS staff offered a "solution" of lowering his credit limit, thus reducing the total amount he could be charged without his consent. But he declined to do so. ...

AiYa,
Dis news report is so misleading.
"Imagine his surprise when he was told that he was not allowed to do so. "
It is a skewed-picture as the bank advises, that "he was not allowed to do so", but rather that the bank avoids intervention since the original agreement lied between the retailer (merchant) and the customer.
The bank should have encouraged Mr Lim to continue to further negotiate with his Telco, maybe listen and even provide some friendly advice/ direction to CASE/ the small claims tribunal- without which, any other solution is simply belligerent or evasive and liable to result in prolonged legal tussles, unhelpful to both.

The bank itself however, maintains the easy option of honoring regardless, ANY and every payment request from merchants able to show some proof of the card member's 'agreement-to-pay'-- (except I guess for blatantly fraudulent retailers- on police 'black lists')- the bank chooses to continue acknowledging ALL charges to the card account based upon a 'valid' payment agreement shown by the merchant.

This is perhaps because banks are just too focused on churning money- cos EVERY transaction yields the bank a fee of ~3+% (retailer pays) so being too attentive to a customer's request to "cancel agreement" isn't in the bank's financial interest.

That said, it isn't known if the new cards issued by DBS would yield higher annual fees, cancellation charges etc- it would be good if the bank did go out of its way to assist the customer in need.

As highlighted above- "Yet even if this solves the problem, it doesn't solve it in the right way."- reflects the emotionless world of fast money and 'quick' service that we now live in now, where 'might is right' and the 'dollar is king'.
This is all a very sad proof of how human relations in today's society have given way to the narrow demands of financial gain and administrative ease at the 'drop of the hat'.
 Where proper procedure and due diligence is passe.
 This is a sad truth for humanity today.

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