Channels Nine's program, 'A Current Affair' is full of recycled sensationalist populist crap.
The only time I watch is when I am too sick to operate the remote or in this case, was lured
by the possibility of cutting my credit card rate.
ACA tease you with a story, making you wait through the whole inane program just to disappoint you at the end. The teaser went along the lines of "what the banks don't want you to know - how to cut the interest rate on your existing credit cards". The story said that if you call up to cancel your credit card, they will offer to cut your interest rate to keep you.
I called CBA and ANZ however I didn't threaten to cancel my cards. I just asked what rate I was paying and whether there was a lower rate available. It turns out the banks were happy to offer me cards with a lower interest rates.
| ANZ | CBA | |||
| Old | New | Old | New | |
| Interest rate | 18.75% | 11.99% | 17.15% | 10.99% |
| Annual fee | $90.00 | $58.00 | $21.00 | $48.00 |
When I visited ANZ's site I saw a current promotion to draw consumers attention to their 'low rate' cards. You don't need to shout "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore". There's a credit card war on and the banks are keen to retain price sensitive customers without lowering the rates across their established products. A.C.A. weren't letting a secret out, they were just alerting the market to some existing credit products on offer.
Still, they've saved me money and for that I am grateful.
4 comments:
And they certainly tread that fine line between "hard hitting investigative journalism" and "advertising for the banks".
Do you have to get a whole new card or do they just drop the rate while you're on the phone?
CBA did it on the spot when I called.
ANZ told me where to download a paper form to fill out and send to them.
Can you threaten to close your credit card account if you still owe money on it?
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