You may still be paying monthly fees for a garage card in your name even if you haven’t used it in years.
In the early 2000s, garage cards – commonly known as petrol cards – enabled motorists to buy fuel on credit and were a common item in consumers’ wallets.
However, as financial services improved over the years most individuals stopped buying fuel with these cards and subsequently forgot about them, which could have ended up costing them dearly.
Yesterday’s convenience, today’s headache
Speaking on 702, consumer advocate Wendy Knowler tells of a Durban resident who recently queried an unknown service fee on her Standard Bank statement and discovered that the bank had been charging her monthly fees non-stop for two garage cards issued in 1995, on which the last transactions were made in 2005 and 2009, respectively.
The motorist was charged R100 a month per card, racking up a tally of more than R33,000 between 2010 and 2024.
After much back-and-forth with varying levels of bank employees, the financial institution committed to refunding her payments but only offered 50% of what she paid during the last three years.
Standard Bank told Knowler that the cardholder isn’t entitled to more than this as claims older than three years have already been prescribed, and that part of the blame lies on the client as it was her responsibility to cancel the cards after they were no longer in use, and that she did not read her statements thoroughly.
The bank argued that it can not close inactive accounts at will as there are many people who only use certain cards in emergencies or other rare circumstances and these accounts may therefore seem inactive but are technically not.
Standard Bank said it did reach out via the client’s preferred communication method to enquire whether she still intends to use the garage cards, but did not get through to her.
In rebuttal, the client said that the payments were merely labeled as service fees and there were no indications they were for her old garage cards. She has a number of accounts with Standard Bank so these charges didn’t look out of place at first glance.
Furthermore, she claimed she had not received any communication from Standard Bank regarding whether she was still using the garage cards and if she was aware she was still paying for them, despite the cards last being active over 14 years ago.
The client now intends to take the matter to the National Financial Ombud Scheme.
Knowler believes this isn’t an isolated case and there are many South Africans who unbeknownst to them are still paying fees for services they no longer use, and urges consumers to look through their statements carefully as it could save them hard-earned money.
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