I AM a credit card holder of a leading multinational bank. I have always paid the bank’s credit card bills regularly and before the due date. This month owing to the coronavirus pandemic, I was unable to pay my bill on time.

I told the bank representative that because of the lockdown, I could not go to my office to access my cheque book and send payment. The bank official listened to me and assured me that there would be no problem if the bill was a little late.

When I received my recent bill, to my surprise, the bank had levied late payment charges as well as financial charges. This extra charge was more than 60 per cent of my total bill!

I would like to bring this issue to the State Bank of Pakistan’s notice. There are thousands of credit card holders like me who were unable to pay their bills on time and therefore forced to pay late and financial charges.

Since it was the federal government’s directive that told the people to stay home for the sake of public safety, isn’t it expecting too much that people pay credit card bills on time or be heavily penalised for failing to do so?

Zeeshan Jaffri

Karachi

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2020