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Complaint of the Day

Credit Cards that Aren't

By Mark Huffman
ConsumerAffairs.com

February 20, 2006
Consumers with bad or limited credit often get offered a "platinum card with $4000 credit limit," but are required to pay an upfront fee. But what they get aren't real credit cards, as consumers like Jane, of Iowa City, Iowa, quickly find out.

"I paid $199.99 for a credit card from National Credit Shopper," Jane told ConsumerAffairs.com. "The plan, they said, was to spend the money on the products from their catalog which, in turn, would help my credit rating. The products were very high priced, and I had questions. However, there was no phone number on their credit card or on their catalog. I could not even get a written response."

Advance fee credit cards are virtually always scams. As for National Credit Shopper, our complaints on this outfit go back to 2001. The Federal Trade Commission sued their parent company in 2002, settling two years later for $36.7 million. Looks like they're at it again.

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