Showing posts with label credit cards. Show all posts

Monday, October 4, 2010

FED's Sue Credit Card Companies over $35 billion in fees

let's take a look: more at the link
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(AP) The Justice Department on Monday sued the three largest U.S. credit card companies for anticompetitive practices and reached a proposed settlement with two of them, MasterCard and Visa.

“We want to put more money in consumers' pockets, and by eliminating credit card companies' anticompetitive rule, we will accomplish exactly that,” Attorney General Eric Holder told an afternoon news conference. “The companies put merchants and their customers in a no-win situation” and “consumers are being held hostage.”

In papers filed in federal court in Brooklyn, the department and various state attorneys general sued all three companies, saying they were attempting to insulate themselves from competition.

At the same time, the Justice Department filed a proposed settlement with Visa and MasterCard.

Under the proposed settlement, Visa and MasterCard agree not to prohibit merchants from offering customers discounts or rebates for using a particular kind of card.

The lawsuit says the card companies are impeding merchants from promoting the use of competing credit or charge cards with lower acceptance fees.

Each time consumers use a credit card to make a purchase, the merchant must pay a fee. Such fees brought in $35 billion last year to the three credit card companies and their affiliated banks.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/10/04/business/main6926403.shtml

Monday, August 30, 2010

Banks up to their old tricks

Beware That New Credit-Card Offer

................"Professional cards aren't covered under the Credit Card Accountability and Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009, or Card Act for short. Among other things, the law prohibits issuers from controversial billing practices such as hair-trigger interest rate increases, shortened payment cycles and inactivity fees—but it doesn't apply to professional cards........................

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704913704575454003924920386.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read

Friday, January 29, 2010

Avoid Credit Card Late Payment Penalty

let us take a look:

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Credit card penalty rates can top 30 percent; how to avoid them

Think it costs a lot to borrow on your credit card now? Make a late payment and your interest rate could jump to more than 30 percent.

Default interest rates -- the penalty rates charged when borrowers violate the terms of their card agreements -- can be two to three times higher than regular rates on your credit card. The current national average default rate stands at 27.88 percent and the mean default rate is 28.99 percent, according to data compiled by CreditCards.com. And while credit card reforms are tightening the rules on how quickly issuers can implement them, default rates are still an indignity that should be avoided at all costs.

http://www.foxbusiness.com

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Thursday, January 21, 2010

Credit Card Defaults on the rise

let us take a look:

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Fitch: U.S. Retail Credit Card Defaults Hit Near-Record Levels with No Relief in Sight

U.S. consumers defaulted on store-branded credit cards at near-record levels during the holiday shopping season, with 2010 likely to bring more of the same trend, according to Fitch Ratings.

Fitch's December Retail Credit Card Index results show that more than one in every eight dollars of receivables was written off as uncollectable during the November collection period on an annualized basis. Taken with the recent delinquency trends and Fitch's expectation for unemployment, Fitch expects retail card chargeoffs to remain elevated throughout first half-2010.

"We do not foresee any meaningful improvement in the retail card credit quality in the coming months," said Managing Director Michael Dean. "U.S. consumers remain under stress on a number of fronts, most notably on the employment front, and retail card chargeoffs will continue to reflect those pressures."

http://insurancenewsnet.com/article.aspx?id=154105

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Credit Card Fees On The Rise

Let us take a look:

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Banks Roll Out New Check, Card Fees

The nation's banks will be bombarding customers with new fees and products in 2010 as they try to replace more than $50 billion in revenue wiped out by new rules that clamp down on certain business practices.

So far, the changes are mostly concentrated in checking accounts and credit cards. In addition to attaching new fees to old products, banks are introducing new types of accounts that they hope will reel in new customers and reduce their funding costs.

For plastic, the new rules go into effect in February as part of the Credit Card Act of 2009. The rules will limit some interest-rate increases, require more disclosure to customers and prohibit banks from raising interest rates on current balances unless a customer is at least 60 days behind in a payment.

Credit-card issuers collected $22.9 billion in penalty fees—such as those assessed for late payments—in 2009, up from $19 billion in 2008, said Robert Hammer, who runs a credit-card consulting firm in Thousand Oaks, Calif.......

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704162104574630360393559766.html?mod=rss_Today's_Most_Popular

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Friday, December 18, 2009

Interest rates on Credit Cards Up Up Up!

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Average Credit Card Rate Breaks the 16% Barrier

Credit card issuers continue to raise rates on their offers to new customers -- leaving customers who are frustrated by hikes on their current cards with few good options. For the first time since IndexCreditCards.com began tracking rates in 2005, the average credit card rate has broken 16% -- jumping to 16.36% today, from 15.94% at this time last month. This is the latest in a succession of increases that has caused average rates to skyrocket by over two-and-one-half points just since March of this year.

http://www.indexcreditcards.com/credit-card-rates-monitor/