Saturday 10 August 2013

They Say You Should Always Read The Fine Print,

especially when dealing with banks,


but one bank did not take that advice, Dmitry Argarkov of Voronezh, Russia, received a credit card offer from Tinkoff Credit Systems, He didn't like the terms spelled out in the contract, so he wrote up his own contract and sent it to the bank, like most people confronted with a lot of small print, the bank didn't bother to read the contract and accepted it, 

Mr Argarkov's version of the contract contained a 0pc interest rate, no fees and no credit limit, every time the bank failed to comply with the rules, he would fine them 3m rubles (£58,716), if Tinkoff tried to cancel the contract, it would have to pay him 6m rubles, 

when Argarkov went deep into debt and the bank tried to call in its usual fees, they ended up in court because Argarkov did not considerhimself liable for fees not specified in the contract, and a judge agreed -Arkarov is only liable for the outstanding balance ($578), not the banks fees ($1,369), next, Argarkov is suing to get the bank to pay HIM the penalties stated in the contract they signed, 

but now Mr Argakov has taken matters one step further, He is suing Tinkoff for 24m rubles for not honouring the contract and breaking the agreement, Tinkoff has launched its own legal action, accusing Mr Argakov of fraud, Oleg Tinkov, founder of the bank, tweeted: "Our lawyers think he is going to get not 24m, but really 4 years in prison for fraud, now it's a matter of principle for @tcsbanktwitter." 

it will be interesting to see hoiw this one plays out, meanwhile let me think, where did I put my latest credit card application form?


1 comment:

Unknown said...

Well - we all live by the small print or fine print on a daily basis. A cool service dealing with small print on a daily basis is called Check-A-Contract. http://checkacontract.com/what-we-do/ - May be of help to other readers.