Consumer Awareness, high interest rates, irresponsible lending and credit approval - RSA

I recently got my RCS statement and was surprised to see that the amount due was R48 more than normal. It had been R130 for a number of months. As I haven’t made any purchases for quite some time I decided to give them a call and see what this was about.

The call centre agent tells me that from 1 June they have introduced a new monthly transaction fee of R24. Ok, that explains where the R48 rand came from. I then ask why they are charging this new fee and without much of an explanation the call centre agent tell me that instead of charging me R2.90 each time that I use my RCS card they or now only charging me R24 a month. Now I start to get a bit upset; you see, I tell her, I have not used my RCS card for about 18 months now. In fact I have only made two purchases with the card. How can you justify charging me R24 in transaction fees when I am not making any purchases? She tells me that that’s the policy now. Ok, now I’m getting rather angry and ask to speak to her supervisor. I try to explain my feelings about the situation to the supervisor, but to no avail. That’s the policy now. Ok, but I haven’t made any purchases and do not intend to make any! At the same time I’m thinking about why they would introduce this new monthly transaction fee. I do the sums as I explain my theory to the supervisor. I you take the new monthly fee of R24 and divided it by the old fee of R2.90 per transaction; that is the same as charging customers for eight transactions a month. I’ve only ever made two purchases and I would guess that on average RCS customers do not make eight purchases using their card per month. Then I think about when this fee was introduced; it seems rather convenient that it was on 1 June, the same day that the new credit act came into effect, the same day that RCS had to drop their interest rates by around 5 percent. Ok, now I now what’s going on. I tell the supervisor that RCS are obviously trying to recoup revenue lost due to the interest rate reduction. This conversation carries on for a while and ends with me telling the supervisor that I’m not prepared to pay the extra R24 a month as I feel the cost is unjustified and that they can suspend my card so that I cannot make anymore purchases. She agrees to get a call centre agent to call me to arrange this.

This telephone call all happened in a Markham store. I must say that the sales assistant was very polite and understanding, telling me that many customers were not pleased with RCS. I went ahead and paid the R 130 as per usual.

The call centre never got hold of me to suspend the card.

About two weeks later my new statement arrived. The R 24 monthly fee has been taken off the R 130 that I paid in and the balance has been credited to my account. My account is now in arrears. So, I call the RCS credit department and explain the situation. They promise to have a supervisor call me. This doesn’t happen.

I have now decided to approach this situation from a different perspective. I am going to pay the R 24 a month, which I still feel, is totally unjustified. I am however going to tell people about what is going on. I wonder if RCS thought about what revenue they would lose when their customers start dwindling away or what they could gain through an effective customer retention policy.

I do realize that it is not only RCS that are guilty of this disrespectful behaviour.

If consumers put enough pressure on these types of businesses they will be forced to change. Unfortunately the majority of borrowers aren’t financially educated and they do not realize how companies like RCS take advantage of them.

I also have something to say about Fairdeal. That will be coming shortly.

Please share your experiences, collectively consumers can be a powerful force.

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