We have certainly heard quite a bit about the new federal regulations that will offer protection to consumers that have credit card accounts. The new federal protections are about to go into effect and we are already hearing from the credit card companies.
Predictably, they don’t like it. The main ingredients in the reform legislation, which takes effect on February 22, 2010, limits the ability of credit card issuers to arbitrarily raise interest rates on account holders.
Some of the components of the new legislation have already been phased in while others, including interest-rate protection, will go into effect next month.
The banks and financial institutions that are in the business of issuing credit cards have made their displeasure known for quite some time now. They contend that the new rules unfairly restricts their ability to do business in a free and open market.
They have already acted by raising interest rates before the deadline prohibits them to do so. Many issuers are also raising fees and funding other creative ways to generate profits from their cardholders.
While the account owners object to these practices, the credit card companies say that they must do this in order to survive. It is their argument that any blame for new fees and charges on credit card customers should be laid squarely at the feet of government regulation.
It is a hollow argument of course, and I dare say that it will not find much traction with the American people.
Unfortunately, it won’t do a whole lot of good to shop around amongst issuers either because it looks as if they will all be finding creative ways to charge account holders.
The best advice we can give at this time is to simply keep a close eye on your credit card statements as well as any correspondence that you receive from your credit card company. We will keep an eye on how the enactment of the legislation unfolds and report it here.
Related Information:
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Tags: Card, Credit Card