New CRL Report: Credit Card Issuers Use Loopholes to Bypass New Rules Intended to Curb Abuses
I think we all expected the credit card companies to find loopholes and continue to abuse the American people so finding this US Newswire article didn’t really surprise me.
New CRL Report: Credit Card Issuers Use Loopholes to Bypass New Rules Intended to Curb Abuses
According to a report from the Center for Responsible Lending, the credit card issuers are making it all but impossible for the average person to know what the real cost of their debt is.
Some of the items that were mentioned were
- Manipulation of interest rates including Pick-A-Rate
- Padding of miscellaneous fees
- Deceptive policy on late-payments
In case you’re wondering what Pick-a-Rate is, here is a direct quote from the article
In this example, a card company tells cardholders their interest rate will be pegged to the prime rate, which until now has usually meant the prime rate on the last day of the last billing cycle. But CRL’s analysis of the fine print finds that a growing number of issuers have added language that allows them to pick the highest prime rate in a 90-day period – no longer a single day . This change can significantly raise a cardholder’s cost, often without his or her knowledge. This particular practice alone costs Americans $720 million a year and, CRL predicts, could grow to $2.5 billion annually in a few years as the practice spreads.
The link in the article was broken but here is the direct link to the report
Dodging Reform As Some Credit Card Abuses Are Outlawed New Ones Proliferate
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