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Cardholders should close old accounts

October 2, 2009 by admin  
Filed under News, News-Credit-Cards

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According to a recent report consumers in the UK need to take more care to close their old credit card accounts when they have disused cards that they no longer use.

Many consumers who have dormant credit card accounts simply destroy the plastic card and think that is all that is required, but industry experts have said that these accountholders also need to ensure that they close the credit card account down if they no longer intend to use it.

It is estimated that there are around thirty eight million dormant credit card accounts in the UK, and whilst many of the account holders may have disposed of their cards a huge number of people have failed to actually close their accounts, and this can result in a variety of increased risks.

It is thought that the average consumer has around two credit cards that they are not using at any one time. It is thought that one in fourteen consumers could have four or five credit cards that they no longer use.

Officials have highlighted a number of risks that can be increased as a result of failing to close a credit card account for a card that is no longer in use.

One risk is that the credit card provider could still be charging fees such as annual fees on the credit card, especially if it is not being used but the account is still running.

There are also a number of other risks that have been highlighted, such as the increased risk of becoming a victim of .

This is because people do not usually check the statements on dormant cards because they are not actually using the card, and this would make it more unlikely that consumers would pick up on any suspicious transactions made on the card.

Tags: credit card fraud, fraud, close credit card accounts, Credit Cards, consumer, Cardholders, MasterCard

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