Credit card providers, are endeavouring to make back the money they have lost, by charging higher annual or monthly fees, or even closing off card users credit limits, according th uSwitch.com, the comparison website.
Credit card companies losses were mainly from, write-offs and the reductions in penalty fees imposed on the industry, by the Office of Fair Trading in July 2006.
New research from uSwitch.com, the independent price comparison and switching service, reveals that last year over 2.5 million credit card accounts were either, hit with an annual or monthly fee, had their credit limits reduced or were even closed down altogether.
However, just 16 per cent of people caught up in this credit card ‘shake-up' missed more than one monthly repayment or exceeded their credit limit in the last 12 months.
Simeon Linstead, Head of Personal Finance at uSwitch.com, said: "We're not against credit cards providers curbing consumers' spending if their debts are genuinely getting out of hand.”
He added: “However, resorting to account closures, reducing credit limits and implementing annual or monthly fees without providing over 1 in 4 people with a reason for doing so is not good for consumer confidence or financial planning.”
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