@BankThink

Reading the Fine Print

JPMorgan Chase & Co. won an award from the Center for Plain Language, but not the kind it's likely to brag about. The organization gave its WonderMark award (as in "I wonder what they were thinking") for unclear language to a letter Chase sent to credit cardholders notifying them of changes to their accounts. The plain-language group's founder Annette Cheek told National Public Radio last week that she read a sentence in the letter 10 times and was none the wiser about the bank's policy.

Here's a sample: "If we do not receive any Minimum Payment within 60 days of the date and time due, the Penalty APR will be applicable to all outstanding balances and future transactions on your Account. However, if we receive six consecutive Minimum Payments by the date and time due beginning with the first payment due after the effective date of the increase, we will stop applying the Penalty APR to transactions that occured prior to or within 14 days after we provide you notice of the APR increase."

Unclear language isn't the only problem. Susan D. Kleimann, the president of Kleimann Communication Group and one of the contest's judges, also noted that the letter's "small, tight, dense text" makes it hard to even to see the important information. "It makes one wonder how much they really wanted consumers to understand, or if saving paper was not a higher priority," she said.