Finally a win for the credit card consumer today as the Fed puts limits on credit card fee’s. These rules are supposed to wrap up the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act.
1. The 39.00 dollar late fee charge has been moved down to 25.00 dollars max.
2. Credit card companies can only charge one late fee now compared to the multiple late fee’s they use to zing us with.
3. Credit card penalties can not longer exceed the balance that you are being penalized for. An example would be if you owed 200.00 dollars on your credit card you penalty can’t be 210.00 dollars.
4. This is a great one. Credit card companies are being forced to review all accounts that they raised the interest rate on since 2009 and reevaluate them. So if your credit card interest rate was raised for no apparent reason you may get a nice surprise in form of a roll back to a lower interest rate.
While these changes put a win in the corner of the consumer the fact is the regulations are still stacked in favor of the credit card lenders. You ultimately are the only person that can control how much you pay in interest and penalties. You want to pay of your entire credit card balance each month to avoid high interest fee’s and any one of numerous penalties the credit card companies would love to throw at you.