Credit Cards Articles

While the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act brought some additional protections for consumers, there were also fears that it could cause issuers to change up some of their tactics.

In fact, some consumers saw their credit card rates increase in the months leading up to the effective date of the new rules. Issuers did this to offset the potential profit losses they could experience from the act.

With the new restrictions, including limiting the ability of issuers to raise rates – some felt as though the firms may bring back old fee structures, such as annual charges tied to accounts.

However, a recent study from Mintel Comperemedia noted that the percentage of credit card offers with annual fees actually declined during the second quarter of this year when compared to the same time in 2009.

American consumers also saw the number of card offers they received increase from 419 million to 1.1 billion when comparing the two quarters. T Read more…

In line with the CARD Act, the Federal Reserve announced the new rules this week. The new protection measures will go into effect August 22. The rules will be the final installment of the CARD Act and will cap late fees and help provide some relief from rate increases on credit cards.

The new rules involve:

Late Payment Fees
Most of the late payment fees on a credit card bill will be capped at $25. The fee can increase up to $35 if one of the last six payments you made was late or if the issuer can provide proof the costs justified a higher fee.

Penalty Fees
Penalty fees can not exceed the amount of the violations that incurred the fee.

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Most major credit cards today offer fraud protection, which protects your credit rating — and your assets — in case your credit card is stolen or if fraudulent charges appear on your credit card.

This should be one of the primary benefits you look for when you apply for a new credit card. Ideally, you want to find a card with $0 fraud protection, which means there is no deductible and you are not liable for ANY fraudulent charges on your card. Some cards make you pay the first $50 in fraudulent charges.

You may also want to look at the amount of fraudulent charges you are protected up to … in other words, you are covered for fraudulent charges that do not exceed $250,000 — or whatever amount. This is

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Ever sincethe 2009 federalcrackdown on abusive credit card practices set out to expose companies that unfairly charged consumers to use their cards, a number of other credit card abuses have been discovered.

According to a report released by the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act and a study from the Pew Health Group’s Safe Credit Cards Project, while most of the practices deemed unfair or deceptive by the Federal Reserve have disappeared, credit card companies have come up with new harmful behaviors to take their place.

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