CREDIT CARD customers who pay off their balance each month are as much at risk of being cut off by their lender as those who have lost control of their debts.
Credit-checking agencies say banks are beginning to weed out clients with faultless borrowing histories because they can make little profit from them.
This disclosure comes as the credit card firm Egg is accused of withdrawing cards from some of its most responsible customers as part of a cull of those said to have a "higher than acceptable risk profile".
The lender, part of the American banking organisation Citi-group, wrote to 161,000 people - 7% of its customers - last week to warn them their cards would be withdrawn in 35 days. They can still repay balances over a longer period of time.
Many people caught up in the clampdown claim they are "risk-free" customers who have never breached their credit limit and have paid off their balance each month.
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Gillian Cox, from Farnham, Surrey, said she was "absolutely furious" to learn that her card had been cancelled in what she described as an "unbelievable arbitrary action". She said she and her husband were retired with no mortgage and no debts and "always pay the balance off in full each month".
Trevor Smith, from Nottingham, who also pays off his balance each month, has had his card cancelled too. "It's disgusting that they are making out it's just the bad ones who are being dropped," Smith said. "Good riddance . . . if that's how they treat people."
One industry insider said that, as businesses, credit card providers had a right to ditch clients who did not generate income. "In the past two years more and more customers have been paying off their credit card debt and that means less in interest charges and other fees for the provider," the source said.
MBNA, the credit card giant, recently introduced annual charges for those who very rarely used their accounts.
Egg denied it was targeting unprofitable clients but Experian, a credit checker, said such customers might be less welcome in future. "Put yourself in their shoes. You spend very little and pay it off every month. You are not an ideal customer," Peter Brooker, a spokesman, said.