New Government Policies on Credit Card Rates don'tgo Far Enough
Starting the third week of February, the government has switched on a set of very stringent regulations for credit card companies, ones that govern how they charge you, how they make their profits, and how fairly they treat you. And that is great for the consumer, except that in one or two cases, the rules may not have been stringent enough. These are part of President Obama's new financial package for the country, and they tell the credit card companies when they are to sit, stand or twirl. For instance, if you overrun your credit limit, they can't charge you a penalty or a fee, unless you've given the company notice that you want such a credit limit extension service. And if the banks are going to be raising their credit card rates or fees in any way, they had better give you a month and a half to prepare for it. And whatever annual charges or application charges they dream up, they can't add up to more than a quarter of your entire credit limit all put together. Often in the past, credit cards that they gave people with poor credit records, would do exactly this.
Where the law didn't go far enough, was in a very profitable policy the banks take. Every time you go visit another country and use your credit card there, the banks charge you a foreign transaction fee and a currency conversion fee, and these can often add up to 3 cents on the dollar. The banks actually make nearly a billion dollars every year just charging you foreign transaction fees. And it's not just people who travel who will be hit by this. Anyone who buys on the Internet from another country, may just find themselves on the receiving end of this policy too. Actually, converting currency from one form to another, is rudimentary work, and to charge credit card rates of 3% on it, does seem a little overly generous. The reason the government didn't find a regulation to control this one was, that they wanted to let the banks have something at least; and the better-off people who travel to other countries, could be offered up as a small token of the government's sympathy for the bank's troubles.
The problem is, the banks are so squeezed for a way to squeeze you, that they might take hold of this one opening they have and raise their foreign transaction credit card rates from 3%, to say 6%. What would we do then? One of the prime reasons they claim they charge these fees, is that people traveling to foreign countries often find themselves targeted for fraud, and then, the credit card companies that have to pick up the tab. While that is a somewhat reasonable argument, charging you extra just because you buy something in Canada, makes no sense. Canada might be just as safe as this country.
There is one solution to these runaway credit card rates on foreign transactions though. Try a Capital One credit card or a Schwab Invest First Visa card. You will need to vote with your spending habits, to get the banks to change their bad habits. How else are they ever going to learn?
Starting the third week of February, the government has switched on a set of very stringent regulations for credit card companies, ones that govern how they charge you, how they make their profits, and how fairly they treat you. And that is great for the consumer, except that in one or two cases, the rules may not have been stringent enough. These are part of President Obama's new financial package for the country, and they tell the credit card companies when they are to sit, stand or twirl. For instance, if you overrun your credit limit, they can't charge you a penalty or a fee, unless you've given the company notice that you want such a credit limit extension service. And if the banks are going to be raising their credit card rates or fees in any way, they had better give you a month and a half to prepare for it. And whatever annual charges or application charges they dream up, they can't add up to more than a quarter of your entire credit limit all put together. Often in the past, credit cards that they gave people with poor credit records, would do exactly this.
Where the law didn't go far enough, was in a very profitable policy the banks take. Every time you go visit another country and use your credit card there, the banks charge you a foreign transaction fee and a currency conversion fee, and these can often add up to 3 cents on the dollar. The banks actually make nearly a billion dollars every year just charging you foreign transaction fees. And it's not just people who travel who will be hit by this. Anyone who buys on the Internet from another country, may just find themselves on the receiving end of this policy too. Actually, converting currency from one form to another, is rudimentary work, and to charge credit card rates of 3% on it, does seem a little overly generous. The reason the government didn't find a regulation to control this one was, that they wanted to let the banks have something at least; and the better-off people who travel to other countries, could be offered up as a small token of the government's sympathy for the bank's troubles.
The problem is, the banks are so squeezed for a way to squeeze you, that they might take hold of this one opening they have and raise their foreign transaction credit card rates from 3%, to say 6%. What would we do then? One of the prime reasons they claim they charge these fees, is that people traveling to foreign countries often find themselves targeted for fraud, and then, the credit card companies that have to pick up the tab. While that is a somewhat reasonable argument, charging you extra just because you buy something in Canada, makes no sense. Canada might be just as safe as this country.
There is one solution to these runaway credit card rates on foreign transactions though. Try a Capital One credit card or a Schwab Invest First Visa card. You will need to vote with your spending habits, to get the banks to change their bad habits. How else are they ever going to learn?