Credit Card Report
Financial News Made Easy

Right now someone, somewhere, may be using one of your credit cards — without your permission.

When the Credit Card consumers’ Bill of Rights goes into effect next month (Feb. 22, 2010), banks will be prohibited from using some of the worst unfair practices they have been subjecting their customers to.

That’s why banks have been working hard to dream up new fees…

Credit card issuers increasingly are switching customers from fixed-rate to variable-rate cards, in part because the new credit card law will limit lenders’ ability to raise rates.

As more Americans struggle to pay their bills while banks at the same time take actions to limit credit card debt, national credit score averages are dropping.

What you don’t know can hurt you, especially when you do not know what is going on in your wallet — or in your credit card accounts.

In response both to the financial crisis and to new consumer protection rules slated to come into effect in 2010, credit card issuers are making major changes to customer accounts.

Many of these changes can negatively impact your credit score.

Yet a recent survey shows that many consumers are unware of recent changes made to their accounts.

If you are in the habit of routinely filing your credit card statements without so much as glancing at the list of charges, you could be losing money without knowing it.

After years of flooding Americans with credit card offers and sky-high credit lines, lenders are sharply curtailing both, just as an eroding economy squeezes consumers.

The pullback is affecting even creditworthy consumers and threatens an already beleaguered banking industry with another wave of heavy losses after an era in which it reaped near record gains from the business of easy credit that it helped create.

Two former employees of credit card issuer MBNA, now owned by Bank of America, said on Wednesday they were forced to use aggressive and deceptive practices with customers in order to boost revenues.

The bill would make it a lot easier for the humble consumer to get a fair deal from the credit card companies. It would eliminate a variety of tricks and traps of the credit card business, like retroactive interest rate hikes.

The White House said on Monday it opposes legislation called “the Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights” that would curb unfair and deceptive credit card practices, saying it would constrain banks’ ability to price risk.