Banks speak out about customers' suffering when canceling credit cards

Credit cards are widely advertised by credit institutions as being able to be opened and used for payment and shopping in just a few minutes, but why does it take a whole month to close the card?

After the Lao Dong Newspaper reported the article "Credit cards are easy to open, hard to cancel", many customers continued to report their difficult cancellation cases.

Mr. Nguyen Nam (living in Ho Chi Minh City) said that a friend who is working at a joint stock bank in Ho Chi Minh City asked for support for the target so he opened a credit card with a limit of 30 million VND. The procedure for opening a card is quite simple, just provide ID card and phone number, take a screenshot of the salary receipt for the last 3 months.

After more than a week, he received the card and was instructed by his bank friend to top up the card with 100,000 VND to activate it. After about 2 months of no spending, Mr. Nam decided to cancel the card on the banking application (app) but was unable to do so. When he contacted the consultant, he was asked to go to the transaction counter or call the hotline to cancel.

Due to being busy with work, he chose to contact the hotline many times to cancel but was unsuccessful, and finally had to temporarily lock the card on the app to prevent card information from being stolen.

"A while later, I received a notice from the bank that I had to pay an annual fee of nearly VND300,000. Unable to pay this fee and afraid of having bad debt, I went to the bank branch and was informed that I would only pay the annual fee, and to cancel the card, I had to... call the hotline or go to another branch in another district. After calling the hotline many times without success, I continued to run to the transaction office of this bank in Phu Nhuan district to cancel" - Mr. Nam said.

Why is it fast to make a card but takes a long time to cancel and requires many complicated procedures? This is a question that many customers wonder about. On the banking app, you can only temporarily lock the card or lock the online payment function, instead of registering to cancel the card?

Many banks require card cancellation via hotline, instead of going directly to branches, transaction offices...

According to the investigation of the reporter of Nguoi Lao Dong Newspaper, due to the nature of credit cards, which are spend first, pay later with an interest-free period of 45-55 days (depending on the card type). Therefore, if customers want to cancel the card, it will take time for the card-issuing bank to check with the card organizations...

Why do many banks require card cancellation via call center, instead of branches or transaction offices?

According to some banks, the purpose of focusing on receiving card cancellation requests via the call center is to help customers conveniently avoid having to travel far, and still be able to make requests right at home or at the office. This regulation is also suitable for the busy life of the majority of card users, who are young generations born in the 80s and 90s, who often do not have much time during working hours...

A bank representative said that when a customer's credit card balance reaches 0 and they want to cancel the card, it will be temporarily "frozen". If they want to cancel the credit card, they need to call the hotline to request it, the bank will check the card, if the balance reaches 0, the card will be temporarily locked. And within 30 days, the card will be canceled.

This is a common process of many banks because there may be transactions of payment intermediaries that are slow to process, system errors, so the outstanding balance in the card is updated slowly...

The officer in charge of the card center of another joint stock bank in Ho Chi Minh City also added that at his bank, the process of canceling a credit card takes an average of 3 working days, in which the cardholder must pay the entire outstanding balance, including transactions that have been used or have just been used.

"In the case of a recent transaction, the cardholder may have to wait a few days for the card acceptance unit (the bank that issued the card machine where the cardholder made the purchase) to settle the transaction to the card-issuing bank. The settlement time for this transaction, according to the regulations of the parties, can be up to 30 days," explained this bank official.

Banks recommend important information that cardholders should pay attention to, including card features, statement closing date, payment time, payment amount and how to pay off the card balance. Annual fee and incentives for this fee (if any) along with some other common fees when using the card, how to look up the full fee schedule. Card interest calculation mechanism when the cardholder cannot pay off the entire card balance in full...

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