subject: If You Have A Credit Card: Things Can Only Get Better In 2010 [print this page] So many people get in serious trouble with credit cards that one wonders whether they should just be outlawed.
College students are bombarded with pie-in-the-sky offers and end up having to drop out of school in order to keep up with the debt. This is a time when young people should be working on their futures instead of tying themselves up in obligations that will limit what they're able to achieve even if they manage to get their degrees.
Taking on a new job that pays beginning wages and having to meet monthly payments that are overwhelming prevent many young people from ever getting on their feet financially.
However, it's not only college students who fall into these traps. The Associated Press revealed early this year that the average outstanding U.S. credit card debt per household was $10,679. The New York Times reported that 40% of families in this country had a recurring monthly balance and the average household had 13 cards.
But there's good news for credit card holders in 2010. Unfortunately, we won't see these rules go into effect until July 1. Following are the changes in the regulations for credit card companies.
A credit card company cannot raise interest rates on a customer's balance unless it's on a variable rate card or the payment is 30 days late.
New cardholders will not see an interest rate hike in the first year of the account unless such a rate hike was revealed to the customer at the time when the account was opened.
Zero interest means zero. So-called deferred interest is outlawed.
Late fees cannot be charged if the bill was mailed less than 21 days before the date payment is due.
In case of more than one credit card, the payment must be allocated among all card balances with different interest rate. They must either be prorated or assigned to the highest interest rate.
Credit cards cannot charge interest on amounts already repaid through two-cycle billing.
No financing of fees on card where they use up most of the available credit on the account.
The credit card companies have responded by warning that new customers will have to pay higher rates and there won't be as many low introductory offers.
The best possible practice, even with things improving somewhat in 2010, is to get the cards paid off and don't charge anything else.
by: Tom de Zeeuw
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