So it looks like our government ran out of fancy acronyms to deal out and instead focused their attention on laws that may actually help John Q Littleguy. But keep it down. If they discover that you are in support of this they’ll shoot it down just to spite you.
Senate just passed a bill that would put restrictions on how hard the credit card companies can screw you. Here are the talking points:
- Bills can be paid online or over the phone without incurring a processing fee.
- Customers must be over 60 days late on payments before their interest rate can be raised on balances; if the rate is raised, it will go back to the lower rate if customers make the minimum payment on time for six months in a row.
- Overlimit fees can’t be charged unless cardholders are told that the purchase will put them over their limit and they authorize it to go through anyway.
- If your card has more than one interest rate on balances, then payments must be applied to the highest interest rate first
Head on over to Lifehacker for the full piece.
