Keep an eye on your credit card statements as retailers can deduct payments whenever they like, as Joanne Christie discovered.

At a recent meeting with my mortgage adviser, she described me as “squeaky clean” on the credit front. And she was right – i’ve never missed a payment and have never gone over my credit limit.

So I was quite surprised to come home a couple of weeks ago to find a letter from Nationwide, which I hold a credit card with, informing me that I’d not paid my last bill and demanding I settle up immediately.

I rarely use this card, so I called the bank to find out what was going on. It turned out I’d been charged £5.13 by AirAsia on 9 December, and because I’d failed to pay the bill in January, I’d been charged £12 as a late payment charge.

I don’t get bills in the post because I’ve signed up for paperless billing, and I must confess to never checking accounts online unless I’ve been using my card.

Last January, my husband and I took six months off and went travelling around South-East Asia. During that time, we flew frequently with AirAsia – a budget airline – and I paid for the odd meal and in-flight service with my Visa card.

However, the last time I’d been on one of its planes was in May last year. I explained this to the bank, pointing out I couldn’t possibly have incurred any charges in December.

It said perhaps AirAsia had not put a charge through in May and was catching up now. When I asked if it was allowed to do this, I was stunned to find the answer was yes.

According to UK Payments, the service company representing the UK payments industry, there is no set limit when it comes to the maximum time a merchant has to take payment from a credit card.

“When you buy something with your card you are basically saying you are going to honour the transaction,” says Michelle Whiteman, a UK Payments spokesperson.

MoneyWise.co.uk

Related News

• No Related Posts