While many of the nation's over 400,000 credit and cash cardholders remain dogged by escalating loans, a 27-year-old woman has made profits of more than NT$1 million (US$31,300) over the past three months using just her credit card.
However, this has raised the ire of her card issuer, Chinatrust Commercial Bank (中國信託), which decided to halt her card on Wednesday.
"If consumers refuse to follow the regulations [stipulated in contracts] when using our products, we're sorry but we have to invalidate their cards as we don't want to see them bearing high risks and distorting the nature of financial tools," said Michael Chang (張智銓), director of the bank's credit card division, during a phone interview yesterday evening.
"As of now, we haven't yet received any response from her. Nor has she contacted us for further negotiations," he added.
Chang refused to disclose the contents of a certified letter that the bank has sent to the woman, citing the Law for the Protection of Computer-managed Personal Information (電腦處理個人資料保護法).
Dubbed the "goddess of cards" by the local Chinese-language media, Yang Hui-ju (楊蕙如), a citizen of Taitung City and a MBA degree holder from the University of Queensland, Australia, stumbled upon the money-making scheme accidentally while surfing the Internet at home.
According to Yang, Eastern Home Shopping Network (東森得易購), the nation's largest television shopping service provider, allowed their members to purchase vouchers worth NT$20,000 (US$627.35) by paying only NT$19,000 when using a credit card.
What caught her eye was that, if the vouchers are not used after one year, Eastern Home Shopping will redeem them by presenting each customer with a check worth NT$20,000, a move that guarantees customers a five-percent return ratio, higher than the interest rate offered on deposits.
She then discovered a preferential bonus-point program provided by Chinatrust Commercial Bank, the nation's biggest credit-card issuer.
By paying a monthly membership fee of NT$800 to the bank, cardholders can earn eight times the amount of bonus points from purchases made using the card.
Having discovered the incentives, she raised capital of NT$6 million from her relatives and put it into her Chinatrust account in order to earn a higher credit line in October last year.
After spending all the money to buy Eastern Home Shopping vouchers using her credit card, she earned 1.6 million bonus points.
She then sold the vouchers on auction Web sites, some of them being bought back by her relatives, who then did the same for her. By doing so several times, her bonus points quickly snowballed to over 8 million points.
The points allowed her to obtain 20 free first-class airline tickets to the US, exchanging 320,000 points for each ticket, which she then sold on the Internet to rake in NT$900,000.
As Chinatrust also allows cardholders to transfer their bonus points, she sold her remaining points via the Internet by selling 1,000 points at NT$300.
This way, Yang said she has amassed more than NT$1 million in profit.
Chinatrust reportedly accused Yang of deception by colluding with her friends and relatives. But the non-profit Consumers' Foundation (消基會) said the bank should apologize to Yang and has no right to invalidate her credit cards.
The bank still profits from Yang's purchases by way of handling fees and if it finds her behavior improper, the bank should instead adjust the promotions, rather than accusing its consumers, said Terry Huang (黃怡騰), the foundation's secretary general.
"If it is OK for banks to make money from consumers, then why can't the reverse happen?" he asked.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his