Barclaycard rapped over credit offer

Barclaycard has been forced into an embarrassing withdrawal of a "highly misleading" interest rate offer.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) said the "0 per cent APR Forever" promotion by Britain's biggest credit card company was illegal because of the array of small print terms and conditions.

The ruling is the toughest yet made against credit card issuers by the OFT which is under pressure to clamp down on banks and other financial services companies that bombard consumers with offers of cheap credit.

The OFT ruled that the promotion was misleading because the nought per cent rate only applied to balance transfer from other cards. It was also a condition of the offer that card holders continued to spend at least £50 a month on the card for which a rate of 17.9 per cent applied.

Barclaycard disputed the ruling but said it would comply with the OFT's decision.