How to avoid £650 million in bank and credit card charges
QUITE incredibly UK consumers seem to pay £650 million a year in bank overdraft charges, late credit card payment charges and so on. That’s the sort of amount that makes payday loans look cheap (which, in some circumstances, they actually are in comparison).
British consumers have paid nearly £650m in credit card and bank account penalty fees in the past year, according to research from the UK’s first fully-secure, multi-platform finance management service OnTrees.
Part of the problem is that most of us have a number of different accounts. At which point it becomes difficult to work out which account that vital tenner in booze money should come out of. If I take it out of there I can have a couple of pints: if from there I’ll have to pay a £35 overdraft fee. Now, what the hell did I actually spend in the last couple of days from which account?
Now OK, OnTree is trying to sell something, their service of course. And what it does is allow you to, once you’ve got it set up, look across all of your accounts and see exactly what is where. Seems like a worthwhile idea actually: even if the answer will sometimes be that there just isn’t a spare tenner for those pints.
Posted: 20th, November 2012 | In: Money Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
