Watch Out For Credit Card Changes
Filed Under (Credit Cards Blog) by creditblogger on 13-01-2010
There are many of us who don’t pay attention to all the documents we receive from our credit card issuer. After all, there are only 24 hours in a day, and if you are spending most of your day working, the last thing you want to do is read documents from your credit card company. If you have opted in for online statements and updates, that’s even worse. You could get updates from your credit card company without even noticing. But did you know your credit card company can raise your fees, introduce new fees, and even add an annual subscription fee to your card at any time? You can always reject the new terms, but how could you know if you don’t read the documents you get from your credit company?
Credit card companies will have to find more ways to extract money from their customers. One way to do that is by adding an inactivity fee. So if you don’t use your card enough, you may have to pay a fee to keep your account open. Annual fee and higher APRs may also be in the horizon.
So here is the moral of story. Credit card rules may have gotten tighter with addition of more consumer protection measures. At the same time, that is not going to keep credit issuers from finding ways to make money off of you. If you have a card that you don’t use regularly, you may want to cancel it or distribute your costs evenly across all your credit cards. But don’t fall for this scheme and spend more than you have. Canceling a credit line may not be ideal, but if it saves you money, it’s a must.
