SEOUL, KOREA- Financial regulators will soon set out to penalize credit card companies that refuse to refund credit card membership fees to first-year members. This is based on a recent survey by the Financial Supervisory Service on 20 credit card issuers, which revealed that as many as 15 companies did not return the annual membership fee to their members who cancelled their membership before the first year's end.
Of the 15 credit card operators, ten companies did not even mention their customers that they would get back the annual membership fee upon cancellation. The financial watchdog began investigating the matter after a wave of customer complaints came in as some credit card companies turned down customers asking for the membership fee refund on the grounds of their own standard provisions.
A Financial Supervisory Service official said, "Any credit card issuer refusing to return annual fees to first-year customers will from now on face stiff penalties. Up until now, most credit card companies have been negligent about training their front-line employees about annual fees under an age-old practice of charging fees and commissions in an arbitrary manner."
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