October 31, 2005

Over 14 million people in the UK have a store card, are they a rip off? you can make your own mind up after you have read this article.14 million store card holders are paying £100million more a year than standard credit card holders because High Street stores are greedy. Most High Street stores are charging up to 30% interest a year. That is disgraceful. The interest is one to four times more than the cheapest that are around.

It is incredible how these large stores continually have good press and at the same time not be completely upfront with their customers.

Phil Evans for the magazine “Which?” visited 10 High Street stores that have store cards and asked the assistants different questions about interest rates and late payments, not one of them could answer the questions. The assistants are not totally to blame here. You see the assistants earn commission on the cards and can be pressurised by their bosses to sell a certain amount of cards each week.

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If you are offered a Store Card make sure you ask for the interest rate, if they cannot tell you just say NO! What about the discount I here you ask? if you have the money for the purchase, you could take the card get the discount and then pay it off and rip up the card when you get it.

The two retailers we have found that have good interest rates are Ikea with 12.9% and John Lewis with 14% Big pat on the back for them so come on the rest of the stores get those interest rates down.

Six out of ten people have no idea how much interest they are paying, and if you are only paying the minimum payment you could end up paying it for years. With Christmas just around the corner and money scarce it is the correct time to start searching for a better credit card with a lower interest rate.

So are store cards good or bad? Personally I would steer clear, however, if you have to use them make sure you ask about the interest rate. Here’s a thought, if no one used these store cards, how long would it be before they had to bring the interest rates down……….