Money

Bizarre campaign tells us high fees are better for everyone

Sep 23, 2015

Cigarettes are good for you and so are high fees – at least, according to the advertising agency employed in secret by the credit card companies, according to Choice.

The consumer watchdog has called on MasterCard to own up to its involvement in the bizarre Don’t Change My Interchange campaign, which is run by the mysterious International Alliance for Electronic Payments (IAEP).

In the ad below, people are urged to fight back against a malicious plan to reduce the fees we are charged for using our credit cards at point-of-sale terminals, telling us they need to be high for our own protection.

Nowhere in the ad is MasterCard or any other credit card company mentioned, but Choice claims to have evidence the company is behind the campaign.

They have compared the tactics used to those deployed by Bot Tobacco, which tried to stub out pesky rumours that cigarettes were bad for you.

Today, it was reported that the nation’s top financial regulators will advise our new treasurer Scott Morrison on growing concerns over exorbitant interest rates being charged on credit cards.

Research has shown the average credit card interest rate margin over the cash rate has grown from eight per cent in 2007 to 15 per cent in 2015.

Watch the ad here and tell us what you think.