'Why should we pay two per cent charge on our credit cards?'

"Sometimes these credit card companies charge us money without even bothering to send statements. We don't even know what we are charged for," fumes 25-year-old Pradeep Kumar Singh, a relationship manager with brokerage house IndiaInfoline.
Pradeep owns as many as 7 credit cards from different banks but uses only four. "I prefer not to use HDFC Bank, Reliance Citibank and UTI Bank (now Axis Bank) credit cards," he says anger palpable on his face. He has different issues with these banks with respect to their customer care service and inefficient management.
While the number of credit card users is increasing rapidly in India so are customers' complaints against them. For young and upwardly mobile credit card users like Pradeep an issue like a credit card company not having a toll free number or an unresponsive customer care service is reason enough to chuck aside the plastic that gives them instant purchasing power.
He stopped using UTI Bank credit card because of the same reason. "I hate the fact that UTI Bank credit card doesn't have a good customer care centre," he retorts failing to understand why a thing as fundamental as customer service is ignored by the bank.
"While ICICI Bank has a phone inside their ATM booths UTI doesn?t even have a toll free number where we can register our grievances," he says justifying why he has stopped using the latter's service.
Today Pradeep prefers using his HSBC, Citibank, Barclays, and ICICI Bank credit cards because they offer him facilities like converting his purchases into equated monthly installments -- which he can easily afford -- at very low interest rates.
However there are two things that he doesn't like about credit cards in general and wishes these to change. "When we go abroad we can't withdraw that country's currency from ATMs there; we can only shop. That's the most disgusting part."
Also, the fact that some retail merchant outlets charge two per cent of total purchases for using credit cards annoys him. He thinks that it is the duty of credit card companies to "strictly deal" with such merchant outlets.

'I own four cards... but use only two'

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'I own four cards... but use only two'May 5, 2008
We asked Get Ahead readers about what they love and/or hate about their credit cards. Here are some of their interesting responses.
Shailesh DubeySenior Analyst, Deloitte Support Services India (P) Limited - OS&T
Here are some of the points I need to share with you with reference to credit cards loans:
How appropriate to talk about the pros and cons of credit cards when the creditworthiness of the individual is getting increasingly questioned in a volatile economy.
I own four credit cards (Citibank, ICICI, BarClays, and HSBC) and prefer to use just two (Citibank and ICICI).
Reasons: Well, friendly customer care, especially Citibank. ICICI needs to pull up its socks to get things moving. Often, their customer care executive sounds like they are just back being harangued from a vegetable market.
Both Citibank and ICICI have great offers for their platinum cardholders which kind of gives a feeling of being truly privileged.
Both Citibank and ICICI do offer EMI options for your purchases, however, they need to tweak the interest rate because when they get cumulated, they become exorbitantly high.
ICICI bank should modify their reward-point redemption programme and should include some more merchants in every cities (like Citibank).