In May 2022 Isabella signed up for a credit card. She had seen an advertisement for the card that said that it was fees free, and she had confirmed it with the card issuer over the phone before signing up. However, her card account was charged an annual fee of $195 for 2022/2023 and again for 2023/2024.
Isabella complained to FSCL.
Dispute
Isabella complained about being charged a $195 annual fee, saying that the credit card was supposed to be fees free.
The card issuer explained that they had different types of credit cards, some that incurred fees and one that didn’t. Isabella had signed up for a card that had fees. A month after the call that Isabella made to the card issuer, Isabella’s card was charged the annual fee for 2022/2023 and Isabella complained to the card issuer. The card issuer explained to Isabella that she had signed up to a fee-incurring card and that their employee had given her the wrong information over the phone. To recognise this mistake, the card issuer said that they waived the annual fee for 2022/2023.
Review
We didn’t receive any information from Isabella or the card issuer confirming whether the card had been advertised as fees free. We found that it was likely that Isabella had mistakenly signed up to a fee-incurring card, thinking that she had signed up for the fees free card.
We found that the card issuer’s offer to waive the annual fee for 2022/2023 was a reasonable offer to settle the complaint. Waiving the fee for 2022/2023 gave Isabella one year to decide whether she wanted to keep the fee-incurring card.
Resolution
We explained to Isabella that as she had decided to keep the fee-incurring card for the 2023/24 fee period, it was reasonable for the card issuer to charge the annual fee for that year. Isabella discontinued complaint.
Insights
Everyone makes mistakes. It is not always fair to expect a card issuer to permanently honour something that their employee has said in error, especially when a reasonable offer has been made to address that error.
