subject: What Every Collection Company Should Know About The Card Act [print this page] On February 22nd, 2010, the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act took effect. The CARD Act had one major goal in mind: to try to put a leash on credit card practices and impose limits to the fees that credit card companies charge consumers. It was designed with credit card holders in mind, limiting the amount of credit made available to them in this recession "for their own good."
As a result of the groundbreaking CARD Act, many banks and creditors have modified their business models by reducing potential risk to cardholders. They have dropped or restricted some borrowers with a poor financial history, tightened up credit lines, and are marketing less. Analysts predict credit limit reductions to have two main impacts for the collection industry.
One impact of the CARD Act has been the restriction of the average size of accounts that are placed for collection. This, coupled with consumer behavior these past few years, where people in general spent savings and maxed out personal loans and home equity, raises concern and eyebrows, because for many debtors, credit cards are the only short term credit that is available to them at this moment.
Another huge effect of the CARD Act is a result of the provision that debtors aren't able to pay off one credit card debt utilizing another card. While this may help consumers to be more fiscally responsible, this obviously has massive ramifications for the collection industry. Researchers and leaders in the field hypothesize that the best way to deal with the enormous changes that have ensued is to remain flexible and to be creative. In addition to the same old telephone calls and collections letters, the internet can be looked into as an option for payment.
Analysts remind us of a few additional ideas that we, as collection professionals should bear in mind about the CARD Act. Extra payments must go to pay off the accounts with highest interest balances first. The CARD Act also grants consumers the ability to set their own credit limits that may be less than those set by the creditors, and marketing credit to college students and giving credit card access to people under twenty one will now be severely restricted.
