Bangko Sentral to start keeping credit-card customer complaints

THE Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is building a cache of information built around consumers and the complaints they may have against any of the credit-card brands out there in the market that are abusive or unfair.

BSP Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr. bared this catalogue of infractions or outright violations of consumer rights in a text message on Monday, saying the information hoard forms part of a continuing program upholding consumer rights and making credit-card firms accountable for their misbehavior.

The broad objective is to use this cache of information against credit-card firms proven to engage in collection activities that warrant temporary or total disenfranchisement.

Some credit-card firms have been reported to behave in a boorish manner, sometimes intimidating hapless cardholders with legal or even physical threats for not making prompt payment on their credit-card dues.

Such behavior will no longer be tolerated and there are appropriate sanctions for credit-card firms that overstep the bounds defined by regulations.

But the consumer has to report the alleged infractions to the BSP first, or nothing will come out of the incident, because the regulators cannot be a party to something they do not know about.

“A formal complaint to our Financial Consumer Affairs Group is needed before we can act. Otherwise, we are not an interested party to the issue,” Tetangco stressed.

He noted credit-card issuers often engage third-party entities to do the collection for them, “and to the extent that these are outsourced arrangements, we can always recall the prior approval to undertake the outsourcing.”

He also said some abusive third-party collectors simply change their office address or their corporate name and reengage consumers as a new entity down the line with their abusive collection tactics intact.

This is where the database of negative information built with every consumer complaint reaching the BSP comes in handy, Tetangco said.

“But it assumes a complaint as a first act,” he reiterated.

The BSP recently passed a set of credit-card reforms in the wake of consumer complaints over opaque and exorbitant credit-card charges that prompted a knee-jerk reaction from legislators who wanted to put a cap on interest rates.

A portion of the reforms pertained to collection practices, including the mandatory period before a delinquent account is passed onto a collection agency and the need for that collection agency to inform the cardholder it was now handling the account, Tetangco said. –Jun Vallecera / Reporter, Businessmirror