OCBC: Cancel Credit Card Must Still Pay Annual Fee!

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

DEAR TRS, PLEASE WARN YOUR READERS OF OCBC SCAMMING MONEY!

Post date:
12 Sep 2014 - 7:31pm









Dear The Real Singapore,
I would like to alert your readers to the bullying and scamming tactics of OCBC Bank.
2 years ago they told me I qualified for their Elite World Card and sent it to me free of charge. I have only used the card once in these 2 years. This July they sent me a statement asking me to pay an annual fee of $1605. I did not want to pay such a huge sum as I barely used the card so I told them to either waive the annual fee or terminate the card. I received a SMS from my relationship manager informing me that the annual fee cannot be waived so can she proceed to terminate the card. I gave her the go ahead and she told me a staff from the call centre would call me to get my authorisation for the card termination.
I received a call from a 'Foreign Talent' staff of the call centre asking me to confirm if I would like to terminate the card and I said yes and asked her if this meant that I can disregard the bill for the annual fee.
She insisted that because the fee cannot be waived so it means that I still have to pay the annual fee even if the card is terminated. This is ridiculous! Why do I have to pay the any fee when I am terminating the card and not utilising any of the services that come with the card? I tried explaining this to her and telling her how illogical it was that I am still liable to pay the annual fee. She insisted that I had to pay and said that my relationship manager had told her clearly that the annual fee cannot be waived.
She kept asking me if she can proceed with the termination and I told her why should I terminate it if I still have to pay the annual fee? She failed to realise how illogical she sounded and was only interested in getting me to confirm the card termination. I was really upset and told her I did not want to speak to her and she should get a senior officer to call me instead.






Is OCBC so hard up to collect the annual fee that they even make customers who terminate the card pay for it? I did not even apply for the card and there is no way I am going to pay $1605 for it. What OCBC is doing is akin to daylight robbery.
I am really upset with them and wonder if I can raise the matter with MAS or the Association of banks. Are banks allowed to give people "complimentary" credit cards and then force them to pay huge annual fees later even if they want to terminate the card? What do you think?

Serene Ho
TRS reader

Editor's Note: We have forwarded this letter to OCBC bank for clarifications. No response as of yet.


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