Revolving cards move away from a battle, but not from the war. The Supreme Court ruling of a few weeks ago, which establishes interest rates six points higher than the credit market average as usury, limits some claims. It keeps open the possibility of claiming for lack of transparency, a way that law firms and consumer associations have been taking advantage of to achieve the return of the interest paid in this product, with high rates, intricate and that eternalizes the debt for credit.
“The strategy from now on is without a doubt alleging the lack of transparency,” says Arcadi Sala Planell, head of BBS Abogados. He points out that until now, in his case, it was going as a subsidiary action in the usury claims – if it was not estimated nullity due to usury, it was requested for transparency. He could now be the great workhorse. “The system has not been marketed with transparency and the sentences for it are increasing. The revolving credit can be transparent, but if things are explained more clearly and with warnings”, says Lluís Ferrer de Nin, a lawyer at Ferrer Advocats.
The problem is that the revolving mechanism goes through credit payments with a payment of small installments a posteriori, of only 30 euros even. “These installments are so low that they are not enough to cover all the interests, which are very high,” says Sala Planell. “The trap comes when financing the purchase in term. They ask you what fee you want to pay, not the return period. As a result, you will pay a lot of interest for a long time,” says Patricia Suárez, president of the Association of Financial Users (Asufin). The average rate exceeds 20%, according to her data. That leads to unsustainable situations like spending six years paying for a television. “The implications were either not explained or the consequences were frivolously explained,” she adds.
The installments end up being allocated more to interest than to amortize capital. It even ends up twisting the situation and interest is capitalized, so that in the end interest is paid on interest, explains Ferrer de Nin. “The most transparent thing is a larger quota or that the consequences of a revolving are explained. They catch more years than we thought, ”he adds.
The key is: was all this known? The decision to claim usually comes when the clients find that they are paying and that the debt does not go down and even goes up, which suggests a certain lack of knowledge of what was contracted. In the demand for transparency, the burden of proof falls on the entities, reports Sala Planell. “The consumer cannot demonstrate what does not exist,” she argues, referring to their lack of understanding and information about the product. To cover themselves, there are entities that, when contracting an online product, culminate the process with a call, where explanations are given, which is recorded.
The big disputes over transparency are the size of the letter of the contracts or a wording that makes it difficult to know the economic cost of the product. “To determine that a clause is transparent, it has to pass two controls. That of incorporation, whether the clause is written in a clear, understandable way, with an adequate font size. Many judgments have already annulled contracts by the letter. And then there is the control of material transparency, on whether what was contracted was correctly informed”, says Sala Planell. Both have faltered, she believes. “In the string of clauses, 4 or 5 very important clauses are included in the middle of the rest, such as the fee or the return of interest,” they criticize in Ferrer Advocats. “We have found illegible contracts. On the second side, in small letters, the conditions and interests are established. Without highlighting it, everything together and impossible to see”, agrees Helena Socias, from BBS.
With the demands, what is usually achieved is the return of the interest paid. As if the product had been zero rate. If it is resolved in favor, everything paid – regardless of whether it was for principal, interest, commissions or insurance – is used to exclusively cover the initial capital or the amount disposed. The rest is returned. For example, if someone requested 1,000 and has already paid 1,500, the debt will be canceled and 500 will be returned to them. the debt and get it out of the revolving system.
