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Posted
Sep 23 2009, 09:00 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Zut alors! Credit card companies are beginning to offer simpler, more consumer-friendly credit cards to the masses.
For instance, Bank of America's Basic Visa card, which debuts next month, will charge the same interest rate no matter how you use the card. It also comes with a set $39 late fee that won't fluctuate regardless of how large your outstanding balance is.
Also, Jack at Master Your Card said, the interest rate won't go up even if you make a late payment.
Even better, it seems, is Chase's new Blueprint feature, newly available for some 20 million existing credit card accounts. Blueprint allows cardholders to single out certain types of purchases -- say, groceries or gas -- that they can pay in full each month interest-free while finance charges accumulate on the rest of the balance.
Why are card companies trying to make things easier for us? In part, they're trying to get ahead of the curve before new credit card rules kick in. The Washington Post offered another possible explanation:
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Posted
Sep 15 2009, 05:44 PM
by
Teresa Mears
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Ann Minch is mad as hell and she's not going to take it anymore.
Like many, she has seen the interest rate on her credit card jacked up (in her case, to 30%), even though she made all the payments on time, wasn't over her limit and didn't in any way violate Bank of America's rules. She had been making the minimum payment on her account for years, about $130 a month.
After trying, and failing, to get the interest rate reduced, she has, in her words "fired the first shot in the debtors' revolution" by refusing to pay another cent of her $5,943.34 debt unless Bank of America returns the interest rate to its previous level, 12.99%. She has staked out her position in this YouTube video, which has circulated widely on the Internet and has been viewed more than 150,000 times.
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Posted
Aug 19 2009, 09:22 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
A few provisions of the credit card reform or CARD Act take effect on Thursday, Aug. 20. You'll have to wait until next year for more substantive changes to the way credit card companies operate.
We're referring, of course, to major changes to federal laws and regulations governing credit cards, which won't kick in until February and next August. Because the fact is that credit card companies responded quickly to the passage of the CARD Act by:
Whew! Did we leave anything out? In other words, they're trying to squeeze every drop of blood they can from customers before the government restricts their ability to do that. (To see how widespread these activities are, read "Credit card holders unduly whacked?")
Here are the legal changes you can expect right now:
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Posted
Jul 16 2009, 04:36 PM
by
Karen Datko
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Bank of America, Chase and other credit card companies are changing an undisclosed number of their fixed-rate credit cards into variable-rate cards.
Chock it up as yet another way the card companies are positioning themselves to protect profits before a new federal credit card law takes effect. The new law limits when card companies can raise the interest rate on credit cards, but those rules don't apply when the increase is tied to a variable rate.
"The fixed-rate-type cards are a dying breed," Curtis Arnold, founder of CardRatings.com, told MarketWatch. About 66% of credit cards in use came with a variable interest rate before the card companies announced they were making the switch, The Associated Press reports.
If your fixed-rate card is converting to a variable-rate card, here's what you need to know:
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Posted
Jul 02 2009, 10:28 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Mark Huffman at partner site ConsumerAffairs.com.
Consumers have been hit with huge interest rate hikes and increases in their minimum monthly payments, and now complaints about America's credit card industry are reverberating through the halls of Congress.
CitiGroup, Bank of America and Capital One in recent days have all begun raising customers' interest rates, in many cases saying it has nothing to do with the customers' performance and everything to do with making up for losses before new laws and regulations tie their hands early next year.
Chase has singled out its customers with the lowest interest rates -- raising their minimum monthly payment from 2% of the balance to 5%. In many cases this action turns the credit card bill into the size of a monthly mortgage payment.
"This is what many of us feared about a law that didn't take effect right away," Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told The Washington Post. "It was never going to take this long for the credit card companies to get ready for the new reforms. Instead, issuers are using the delay in the effective date to wring more dollars out of their customers. It is against the spirit of the law, and it is just plain wrong."
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Posted
May 22 2009, 08:57 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller.
Conventional wisdom in and around Washington, D.C., is that the credit card legislation that passed the Senate this week is a big win for consumers. On an overwhelming majority of 90-5, the measure passed the Senate and is on its way to the White House. (Update: President Obama signed it today.) Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., who had sponsored a similar measure that passed the House earlier this month, said, "Today is a victory for all credit cardholders."
But is that right? Is the credit card legislation a victory for all cardholders? While the measure certainly has some benefits for consumers, it will likely make credit cards harder to get, more expensive for some, and less rewarding. So let's clear away all the political hype that surrounds credit card reform, and evaluate who the winners and losers really are.
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Posted
May 21 2009, 03:35 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Many bloggers have applauded the credit card reform legislation now on President Obama's desk. It would eliminate or restrict some of the card companies' most egregious practices.
But will it have unintended consequences? For instance, will people who don't carry a balance end up being charged an annual fee? Will higher interest rates and lower credit limits become the norm for those who do carry a balance? We'll see.
But the strangest observation we've seen is that the new law does next to nothing to benefit the cardholders called "deadbeats" -- the term of endearment credit card companies have for those customers who never carry a balance from month to month.
Hmm, maybe we don't need any help.
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Posted
May 21 2009, 02:40 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This guest post comes from Odysseas Papadimitriou at Wallet Blog.
Both houses of Congress have now signed off on a bill to amend the Truth in Lending Act, and now it's off to President Obama's desk, where it's anticipated the legislation will be signed into law. At Wallet Blog, we have been covering the news on this bill as it has evolved. Now that it's headed to the president for approval, we'd like to provide an in-depth analysis on the bill's major features.
They are as follows:
APR changes on your existing balances. Credit card companies won't be allowed to raise interest rates on your existing credit card balance unless you are more than 60 days behind on your payments to them. If you get an APR hike because you were 60 days late, you will be able to get back your original rate by making payments on time for six months in a row.
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Posted
Apr 10 2009, 01:13 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Truman Lewis at partner site ConsumerAffairs.com.
As Congress mulls new restrictions on credit card issuers, Bank of America is raising interest rates on millions of its customers who routinely carry a balance on their credit cards, a move already taken by most other larger issuers but not one that goes down well with consumers.
Basically, BofA and other banks are penalizing customers who don't pay off their bills each month. It's a reversal of banks' usual practice. During normal economic times, bankers loathe customers who pay their balance each month, because by so doing they deprive the bank of the interest it would have earned on the unpaid balance.
But now, with banks hoarding every cent, the worm has turned.
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Posted
Feb 26 2009, 04:40 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Mark Huffman at partner blog ConsumerAffairs.com.
Consumers reacted with anger when credit card companies recently began to change the terms for many cardholders -- in advance of new government rules that would outlaw some of those changes. Capital One is provoking some of the most heated reaction.
"I received a notice from Capital One bank stating the 4.9% APR on the MasterCard I have had for six years will be increasing to 13.9%," Helen, of Boca Raton, Fla., told ConsumerAffairs.com. "I have always paid my bill in total and on time, if not early. I called the customer service line and they very politely read the 'cue cards' stating it was a ‘business decision due to the current economy.'"
Helen wanted to know if Capital One could raise her rate for no reason. In fact, it can. After June 2010 it won't be able to do so under new rules adopted by the Federal Reserve, which may help explain why it's doing so now.
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