Argos to refund card customers £30m

Thousands of Argos customers will be refunded by up to £30m, as a result of being overcharged on their store cards.

The company has launched an inquiry into how customers were wrongly charged excess fees for late payments.

The news was announced by the boss of the Home Retail Group, which owns Argos, in a trading update.

Affected customers will be written to in the next few weeks, and are expected to receive up to £100 each in compensation.

The issue was discovered earlier this year, but an initial sum set aside for redress proved insufficient.

"It's not a material number of customers and not a material amount of money per customer," said John Walden, Home Retail's chief executive.

"But for each customer it matters. We will address it and treat customers fairly."

Following a decision by the former Office of Fair Trading in 2006, late payment fees should generally be limited to £12 - with interest chargeable on top.

Home Retail Group is in the process of being taken over by Sainsbury.