New Credit Card Rules Give Consumers a Break – in 2010
Deceptive credit card practices that have kept consumers permanently in debt are now being reined in by Federal Regulators. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the new rules don’t go quite far enough, and they don’t take effect until 2010.
You know you should read every contract before accepting it, but credit card contracts are often 30 pages long and written in a form of “legal-eze” that even lawyers find hard to decipher. Thus, most consumers don’t even attempt it. If you’re like most people, you probably don’t even know where you put it.
In recent years, credit card companies have added a variety of clauses designed to maximize penalties and fees, while allowing them to increase interest rates to 25% - and in some cases even higher.
A common ploy to lure consumers into the debt trap has been to offer rock bottom introductory rates – some even at zero percent for the first few months. Accompanying those offers are a few checks – with a letter encouraging consumers to “take that vacation” or “purchase that new furniture” with the checks.
Once the introductory rate period ends, rates go back to “normal” – or higher.
To be fair, some companies offer those rates on balance transfers and convenience checks until the balance has been paid off. But they don’t stress the fact that if you use your credit card to make a purchase, the interest on that purchase will be at a high rate. And – your payments will be applied first to the balance transfer or check at the low rate. Thus your high-interest purchases are buried where you can’t begin chipping away at them until you’ve paid off the low rate balance.
Under the terms of “Universal default” credit card issuers are allowed to raise those introductory rates in the event you are late with a payment – and that’s fair except for one thing. The late payment doesn’t have to be on their account – it can be a late payment on any other account that is reported to the credit bureau.
The new rules won’t completely prohibit Universal default, but they will prohibit the card issuers from
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Credit Card Debt – ‘Til Death Do Us Part
There are a lot of things you can’t take with you when you die, and in the case of credit card debt, it can be a good thing. However, this can change depending on where you live and whose names the credit card is under. Of course, the simplest scenario is that the credit card was on your name alone, with no joint account holders. In this case, any debt owed on the card, after death, would belong to only you and no one would inherit it.
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Prepaid Credit Cards – The Alternative for those with Bad Credit
In today’s technological era, it seems that more and more business and personal transactions are being done over the phone or online. As opposed to the old days when things were done through the mail or you had to go in person, the electronic age makes everything quicker. You can conduct routine transactions, from the comfort of your home, during almost any time of the day. You can do almost anything within minutes from making hotel reservations, booking airline tickets, or purchasing something from across the country on EBay or Amazon.
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Build Good Credit from the Get-Go
As a young person just starting out, the best way to ensure your credit file stays healthy is to take all the right steps from the get-go. It’s never been more important to have a solid credit history than it is in today’s world. Creditreportblog.com offers some basic steps to ensuring that you get started in the right direction.
· Open up checking and savings accounts, if you don’t have one already. Having a bank account is sort of sign of stability in the eyes of lenders.
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Maintain the “You” in Your Credit Union
However, when it comes to credit, too much togetherness can be bad for your bottom line. Even though there’s no such thing as a “couples” or “joint” credit report, if you both are named on a loan or listed as joint account holders, any flub-up (late payments, defaults) on the account will mar both of your credit files, no matter who forgot to put the mortgage check in the mail.
CreditReportBlog.com recommends that all couples make looking at each other’s credit reports a part of the screening process once things start to move towards the marriage phase. As skeptical as it sounds, there is never a guarantee that any marriage is going to last forever. An uncomfortable conversation now can avoid an even more uncomfortable situation later, if things turn sour with your finances.
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Get Free Credit-Monitoring Services
The settlement applies to everyone who had an open credit account or open line of credit from any lender from January 1, 1987, to May 28, 2008. Anyone with a credit card, car loan, mortgage, student loan or any other loan qualifies, which means most adults do.
Credit Report Blog.com urges all its readers to take advantage of this great deal. Best of all, nearly everyone is eligible. TransUnion’s monitoring services can be very valuable to consumers, especially when you won’t be paying a dime for them! Read more
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