Orchard Bank Shady credit card annual fee practices Internet

I applied for a 0% Orchard Bank credit card. On the cover letter, there was no mention of an annual fee. I applied online and was immediately approved. My card arrived about a week or two later with a $400 credit limit. Then two weeks after that, I was charged a $39 annual fee. I called them about it, and they said since I had already charged something on the card, I had implicitly accepted their agreement as they had mentioned the annual fee in the fine print not on the cover letter.

At that point, I canceled the card. They may be write that the annual fee was in the fine print, but that is definitely a shady practice to bury it like that. I also just found this from their application faq on their website which also seems shady:

--- start From www.orchardbank.com
# Is there an Annual Fee?

Depending upon your credit profile, your card could have an annual fee associated with it.
--- end From www.orchardbank.com

so they do not nail down the annual fee. It seems like they are predatory lenders looking for a class action suit. If someone needs my story to do that (not sure if it will help as I am not sure if anything was actually illegal), please contact me.

John
Evanston, Illinois
U.S.A.