When is a storecard not a storecard?

The rush to persuade storecard holders to turn them into credit cards is turning into a stampede.

John Lewis is the latest retailer to ask its account card customers to switch to a new Lewis credit card.

First came Marks and Spencer. It automatically switched its best account card shoppers to its new &More credit card.

Complaint

In the process it received a rap over the knuckles from the Office of Fair Trading.

The watchdog said customers should be able to positively choose whether or not they wanted a credit card.

One in every three adults in the UK has a store-card and the UK's biggest store card provider is GE Capital.

In September 2003 GE Capital sent out what were described as unsolicited credit cards to a selected group of Debenhams' two million card holders but weren't told off so sharply because customers were given the chance to opt out.

Now it's John Lewis. The chain has learnt from M&S and GE Capital's experience, because it'll be sending a mail shot offering the new John Lewis credit card to accountholders, but asking them to write back if they want it.

Charlie Mayfield, Development Director, of John Lewis told Working Lunch:

"We have always respected the customers right to choose therefore for us there really was no option other than to send customers information about the card with an application form and ask them to apply."

"We believe that this is in line with the rules and is the right thing to do," says Charlie Mayfield

"We believe that this is in line with the rules and is the right thing to do."

Why change?

So why is John Lewis trying to get customers to replace their storecards at all?

"Since we started to accept credit cards what we found is the number of people actively using their John Lewis store card had started to decline slowly, " says Charlie Mayfield

"Those customers were still shopping with us it's just they were choosing to use someone else's credit card."

There's another twist to this tale. GE Capital has changed its terms and conditions to clarify its right to upgrade customers' storecards to credit cards.

This move only further fuels the debate as to whether credit cards should be made so widely available to people who didn't actually ask for them in the first place.