No more card retention teams ?

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baldman

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Morning all !

I rang Westpac yesterday to discuss a waiver / reduction of the annual fee for my altitude black MasterCard. The CSO told me that they were no longer permitted to offer inducements to cardholders to maintain their existing card. They were only permitted to offer cardholders the opportunity to switch to another product.

The CSO said that the card retention team was essentially no more and that these changes had come about as a result of government changes to credit card regulations etc.

Anyone know anything about this or had a similar experience / conversation ?
 
I'd think it would more depend on the card and your level of profitability to the bank.

But certainly the changes have made cards less profitable, so this will be felt in both signup and retention.
 
Last year NAB offered to waive my Premium Velocity fee, this year it wasn't on the table, so I closed it.
 
Last year NAB offered to waive my Premium Velocity fee, this year it wasn't on the table, so I closed it.
Yes, similar situation with me where they have waived the fee for the last 3-4 years but this year the CSO said they were no longer permitted to do so as a result of industry changes.
 
I'd think it would more depend on the card and your level of profitability to the bank.

But certainly the changes have made cards less profitable, so this will be felt in both signup and retention.
It’s their highest level card (black ) and they have waived the fee for many years, presumably because the high total annual transaction value meant they were making plenty from the merchants.
 
Anyone know anything about this or had a similar experience / conversation ?

you will experience this with all lenders now, if you say you want to cancel it, they have to proceed.
I recently asked westpac to cancel my credit card, and he just warned me about 3x that once he presses the cancel button, it cant be reversed. my guess was thats all he is allowed to do.

What surprised me that they didnt even ask why I wanted to cancel it.
 
you will experience this with all lenders now, if you say you want to cancel it, they have to proceed.
I recently asked westpac to cancel my credit card, and he just warned me about 3x that once he presses the cancel button, it cant be reversed. my guess was thats all he is allowed to do.

What surprised me that they didnt even ask why I wanted to cancel it.
Completely consistent with my experience. I wonder what they can do if you say that you dont want to cancel the card, however you also dont want to pay the rack rate ?
 
Exactly the same experience with HSBC Card. Each year they credit my annual fee. When I called was told that they are not allowed to do it this year and said it is due to the new banking regulations. When I asked to close the account was told certainly and it was done with a flick of a switch....was not transferred anywhere else for retention and that was that. I have other cards with a lower card fee. Just had to change a few debit orders.
 
This is an outcome of ASIC's ongoing review of credit card lending and subsequent government legislation. But note that it only applies to credit contracts entered into after Jan 1 this year. So in theory there's no reason they still can't offer inducements to stay for cards you had before that date.

Credit limit reduction and cancellation

For credit card contracts entered into after 1 January 2019, credit providers must give consumers the right to ask to reduce their credit limit or cancel the contract. Providers must give consumers a way to use these rights online. If a consumer makes a request, the credit provider must:

- not suggest something that is contrary to the consumer’s request; and
- take reasonable steps to ensure the request is dealt with as soon as possible
 
This is an outcome of ASIC's ongoing review of credit card lending and subsequent government legislation. But note that it only applies to credit contracts entered into after Jan 1 this year. So in theory there's no reason they still can't offer inducements to stay for cards you had before that date.

Although they can (and it seems they do) treat everything the same.
 
What if we just call and ask for the annual fee waived? Not asking to cancel, just asking for offers. Has anyone done this?
 
What if we just call and ask for the annual fee waived? Not asking to cancel, just asking for offers. Has anyone done this?

I guess you could, but then you would still end up in a conversation as to why they should do that?
 
What if we just call and ask for the annual fee waived? Not asking to cancel, just asking for offers. Has anyone done this?
They told me “ we don’t negotiate on fees “ ...
The CSO was not surprisingly, pretty useless.
 
All banks now need to provide the ability to close accounts on line - I have already utilised with Westpac and AMEX

I guess that significant numbers of closure requests will now be done that way so perhaps another reason for retention teams being disbanded
 
I got my fees waived for the St George card 2 weeks ago. I just asked for the fee to be waived. Got told that it’s a one of thing and it will not happen again. Happy for the outcome!
 
What if we just call and ask for the annual fee waived? Not asking to cancel, just asking for offers. Has anyone done this?
Yes, I have done this without success, was told they are not allowed to do this anymore.
 
This is interesting! and disappointing but I only in the last few days rang Amex to cancel one of my cards. As soon as I said the words “ I would like to cancel my account”the CSO said ok that’s been done for you BUT she then proceeded to offer me 100,000 free points and that would use 20,000 of those points to pay my annual fee. I felt I couldn’t refuse (which is the whole idea) I was a bit agitated when my account was cancelled so quickly as I had just been billed my $90 annual fee and before the cancellation was actioned I wanted to confirm that I wouldn’t have to pay it otherwise I would wait another 12 months to cancel it as why should I cancel when I paid the annual fee. I must say say at the end of the call I was pretty happy and surprised as I was genuinely ringing to cancel the card as it had a low limit and I don’t use it anymore. This goes against what we are being told.
 
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Hopefully this wont apply to the FFFL Citibank Signature card in regards to FFFL being with drawn. After all it is a contract that both party's happily entered into.
 
Interesting outcome from consumer protection law changes - I doubt these consequences were deliberate. One matter to be aware of when considering cancelling a card is that you may loose any accumulated points unless you can transfer them into the target airline program. BTW has anyone posted here about which airlines have expiry dates on points in their FF programs? I have been reluctant to transfer credit card points into FF programs because of the risk of expiry but if they no longer expire, I may as well do the transfers. Ta, Peter.
 
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