I refer to the article, 'Master your card' (Feb7). One vital point left out is the administration fee levied for transactions in foreign currencies charged to credit cards.

I was unaware of this administrative fee, as I had not used my credit card for foreign transactions in the past two to three years. In a recent transaction via my UOB Visa credit card, however, I noticed that the exchange rate used was unusually unfavourable.

After much querying, I received the following reply from the bank: 'We wish to inform you that card transactions in foreign currencies will be converted to Singapore dollars based on the prevailing exchange rate determined by the card associations... All transactions in foreign currencies will be subject to an administrative fee of 2.5per cent (or such other rate as determined by us or the card associations) levied by us and the applicable card associations. All MasterCard transactions effected in Singapore dollars and processed overseas are levied an additional fee of 0.8per cent by MasterCard International.'

When I replied that I was not aware of this administrative fee, I was told to read the overleaf of the statement or refer to the website.

This really flabbergasted me. I have been a card member for more than 20 years and had never been aware of this administration fee.

I checked and could only surmise that the administrative fee started only about two or three years back. I do not recall the bank having written to inform me of the imposition of such a fee.

Is it not a legal obligation for the bank to write to inform its customers? Is it reasonable to include such new fees and expect customers to read the conditions overleaf and be deemed to have knowledge of the fees?

I hope my letter will alert credit card users to this administrative fee, as my own checks among friends have shown that most of them were not aware of such a fee.

Lim Mui Cheng (Ms)

This article was first published in The Straits Times.