Long-standing egg customers have been angered at the card issuer's actions. Photograph: Martin Godwin
Egg customers have reacted with outrage to the news that the online bank is withdrawing credit cards from 161,000 customers. Cardholders have bombarded blogs with comments, regardless of whether they have received one of the "Dear John" letters.
Many whose accounts are being closed feel their reputations have been unfairly slurred by the inference they have a high-risk credit record, and say they will now cease all business with egg.
Jon Peedell, writing on The bankwatch, says he initially welcomed the news that egg was cutting back on high-risk customers, assuming the move would help to keep fees down for low-risk customers like himself. So he was shocked to receive notification that his own account was to be closed. He posted extracts of his letter to egg:
I am a long standing customer of egg and even turned to you for my loan last year. My partner has a card and savings with you, (sorry, had savings with you). It's clear, I don't make you enough cash, so you want rid of me.
kibblerok, writing on Digital Spy, is also suspicious of egg's motives:
I got the letter. I asked for my limit to be cut to £1k last year myself ... [I] pay it off in full by direct debit and have done for the last seven years ... They say the customers [that are being cut] are an increased risk ... yet they haven't done a check on my credit record to see if [I am].
Montesquieu on housepricecrash.co.uk says there is no way he could be considered a high credit risk:
I've just had my Egg card cancelled. Their 'risk exposure' was £450. I've been an egg customer for nine years and never missed a payment or gone even close to my (£12,000!) limit.
However, Jesaya on digitalspy.co.uk thinks credit card companies do need to get tougher with credit cardholders:
Whilst it seems that egg may be targetting the wrong customers, I thinks it's about time credit was made harder. The son of one of my friends ran up a £30k+ debt on his cards ... most of which was written off. Now, just a couple of years later he is doing the same thing again.
Much of the anger seems to be aimed at the way egg has handled the story. Writing on digitalspy.co.uk, Ubarrow who has been an egg customer for years and pays of his balance in full, suggests the company made a PR blunder by saying it was targeting customers whose credit ratings had deteriorated.
The thing is that these bozos don't realise that the internet has changed everything. You simply cannot insult 161,000 people and get away with it!
