Credit card companies try to worm out of web protection

PROOF, WERE IT NEEDED, that a banker is someone who'll lend you an umbrella and ask for it back when it starts raining, comes today in the form of an appeal by two UK credit card companies to remove consumer protection for card purchases made overseas.

Lloyds TSB and The Royal Bank of Scotland are appealing to the House of Lords over an Office of Fair Trading ruling in 2006 which made card providers jointly liable with retailers for faulty or undelivered items, whether purchased in the UK or overseas. The banks claim that they have little chance of reclaiming funds from foreign companies, whereas they can obviously send the boys round to dodgy retailers in the UK and explain the error of their ways.

The banks are also concerned that they have little recourse against overseas Web stores and are 'acting as unpaid insurers for some 29 million foreign retailers'.

A spokesBanker told The Grauniad: "A UK card issuer has no real connection with the millions of foreign suppliers where its credit cards can be used, and may not be able to recover… payments from that supplier."

But spokesman or consumer watchdog Which? disagreed: "Consumers should be covered regardless of where they buy the item, including online and overseas. Consumers already pay a charge each time they use a credit card abroad. It would be highly disappointing if the courts found against consumers in this case." µ

L'Inq
Guardian