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Jewellers still charge credit card users extra

Saijadur Rahman
There are continuous allegations from buyers and bankers that jewellery traders charge an additional amount of 3 percent from their customers who use credit cards.
The gold ornament customers and bankers think the traders are not entitled to realising such an extra charge, while the jewellers say they have no choice but to do so because they are not ready to face a huge loss.
"Suppose, a piece of gold ornament sells atTk 10,000, but the amount will come down to Tk 9,700 if it is paid through credit card,” said Anwar Hossain, the owner of General Jewellers Ltd, who is also the immediate past president of Bangladesh Jewellery Manufacturers and Exporters Association.
As per an agreement with commercial banks traders are obliged to pay the banks charges ranging between 1.5 percent and 3 percent for the use of credit cards.
Initially, all traders accepting the payment for any item purchased through credit cards charged an amount that is additional to the actual price of that item. But such a practice has come down to a large extent and is now limited to the jewellery and electronics shops, a market survey found. The incidence of such extra fee realisation often leads to altercations between this sort of traders and customers.
At Eastern Plaza in Dhaka, a
buyer, who works in a private firm, narrated recently to this correspondent his experience of being charged extra amount of money when he bought a piece of gold ornament from a shop." I bought a piece worth of Tk 20000, but I had to pay the seller Tk 20600 as I did it through credit card, he said, adding that the seller's plea is that he has to pay his bank 3 percent extra charge.
Hundreds of customers have been experiencing the same for years. These users of credit cards alleged that despite a rapid increase in the usage of such cards banks have failed to protect the customers' interests.
"They are not supposed to take extra fees from the card users," Vikram Issar, the former
head of corporate banking at the Standard Chartered Bank, Bangladesh, told The Daily Star some days before his departure for Bangkok to take over his new assignment at the bank's Thailand office.
When asked whether the StanChart, the first introducer of credit cards in Bangladesh in 1997-98. has anything to do to ease the sufferings of the card users, Vikram said: “Let us know first".
He, however, said he did not experience any odds at the usage of his card.
Bangladesh Bank data shows payments and transactions thorough credit cards by private banks rose to Tk 4.31 billion on December 31,2007 from Tk 1.92 billion six months ago.
sajjad@lhcdailystar net