New Credit Card Over Limit Fee Laws – What you Don’t know Can Still Hurt You

 

The Credit card (Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure) Act of 2009 was signed into law on May 22, 2009, and took effect on in it’s entirety on Feb 22, 2010. It attempts to change some of the more unpopular policies used by credit card companies. Credit card issuers have been generating a substantial portion of their revenue in recent years not from the interest they charge, but from the myriad fees they charge consumers. There are many of these, and some have been used for a long time, such as monthly fees. People expect to pay such charges, and if they don’t like them, they can use one of the many cards without monthly fees. There are some fees that you can not escape unless you are very careful, however.현금화

One of the most insidious fees in this category are ones that card holders are charged for going over their credit limit. In days gone by a charge would simply be denied if the card holder attempted to charge an item that put them over their credit limit. Those days are gone. In the guise of convenience, card holders realized that they were overlooking a potentially highly profitable revenue stream.

Once the decision had been made to implement such fees, the card issuers jumped aboard the bandwagon with a vengeance. According to the 2008 Consumer Action credit card survey, 95% of all consumers report that their credit card has an over the limit fee, although that will doubtlessly change with the enactment of the new law. The average fee is around $29. 00 and can be charged on a per occurrence basis, although some issuers charge only one fee for exceeding the limit.

Pity the card user that heads to the mall for a bit of shopping, absentmindedly forgetting that their credit card is close to the limit (going to the mall with maxed out credit cards is a subject for another day). They could easily rack up hundreds of dollars in new fees for exceeding their credit limit. Remember, those fees are charged per occurrence.

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