It’s a scam, it’s a trap. There was such a case: Ms. Zhang, a credit card customer of Hua Xia Bank, applied for an ordinary credit card at Hua Xia Bank years ago. According to Ms. Zhang’s description, when she applied for the card, the bank’s staff claimed that “it would be over 10,000 yuan within 3 months.” Points can be exchanged for gifts.” After opening the card, Ms. Zhang earned 10,000 points when she spent more than RMB 10,000 with her card within the specified time, and used these points to get a set of pots as she wished. But after receiving the gift, Ms. Zhang planned to cancel the card, but the bank told Ms. Zhang that after receiving the card opening gift, she could not cancel the card within two years, otherwise a gift fee of 350 yuan would be charged.
When evaluating the quality of a bank's credit card services, in addition to card application gifts, timely account change reminders, efficient limit increases, decreases, and single consumption restrictions to ensure the security of credit card accounts are obviously more important. Developing the habit of applying for and using cards within your means is far more important than how many gifts you receive.
Related trap: No annual fee is tempting to retain the card
A netizen posted this on Weibo: "I originally wanted to cancel my Shanghai Pudong Development Bank credit card, but after submitting the application, I The customer called me and said that I was their old customer for 5 years and that they would waive annual fees for life, so I might as well keep it! Are all banks like this? Will annual fees be waived for life after 5 years?"
Actually, , this is a strategy only used by bank credit card centers. At present, most credit cards can waive the annual fee for the first year, and the annual fee can be reduced or reduced each year by swiping the card a certain number of times or reaching a certain amount.
For example, some of China Merchants Bank’s credit cards are free of annual fees in the first year of opening the card, but then you can waive the annual fee if you swipe the card 6 times a year. Some high-end credit cards have high annual fees, and the corresponding requirements for the number of card swipes are higher. For example, China Construction Bank's platinum credit card requires 18 card swipes within a year to waive the annual fee.
Banks attract consumers by waiving annual fees, mainly because they capture people’s mentality of “you don’t have to pay more for one more card anyway”. Industry insiders believe that although banks advertise that they are free of annual fees, they are actually conditional. If you have too many cards on hand, you will inevitably neglect the management of each card.
Reminder: When banks set up annual fee exemption, they will limit two factors, one is the period, and the other is the number and amount of card swipes. For consumers, they can ask the bank’s policy clearly before opening a card. In addition, banks' annual fee-free policies generally include terms such as "first year" and "second year", but the starting time of each bank is different. Some banks count one year from the cardholder's card opening date to the day of the following year, and the annual fee is waived within this year; some banks count from the card verification date or the card issuance date, and the annual fee amount will be calculated every year thereafter. It will be reflected in the bill of the month on the card verification date or card issuance date.