How the New Credit Card Law Affects You

Laws are created to protect people as well as their interest. Through laws, policies and even simple rules and regulations, we are able to recognize our rights and privileges. We gain a feeling of security especially because we know that the government looks after our welfare.

One of the best examples of rules created to protect the interest of consumers is the new Credit Card Act. What are the provisions of this federal law? How does it influence the lives of credit consumers? And how does it protect the welfare of credit cardholders? To know the answers to these questions, we encourage you to read the succeeding paragraphs of this short article.

What is the New Credit Card Act?

The New Credit Card Act, more formally known as the New Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility , and Disclosure (CARD) Act was implemented on August 20, 2009. This law gives credit cardholders the special privilege of declining drastic changes that card issuers intend to impose on their credit card programs. Why is this important?

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How You Can Benefit from the New Credit Card Law

The new Credit CARD (Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure) law was approved on May 22, 2009 and since then, modifications has been made to protect consumers and credit cardholders. In this post, let us discuss how consumers can benefit from the changes made:

1. Rules on Credit Card Fees. Credit card companies are now prohibited from imposing additional fees from their cardholders who want to send in payment through telephone banking of through the internet.

2. No Double-cycle Billing. In the past, some credit card issuers use the double-cycle method of billing where the cardholder’s rate of interest is based upon the current and previous balances. Under the new Credit CARD, double-cycle has completely been eliminated.

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The Issue of Hidden Credit Card Costs and You

It cannot be denied that credit cards are a part of life. We use it in buying groceries, clothing, paying utilities, purchasing airline tickets, making hotel reservations, etc. But many consumers who own credit cards fall in the trap of bad debt. Why?

According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a lot of credit card holders do not realize that occasional misses or delays with their credit card payments can cost them extra bucks on interest rate and penalty charges.

In a study conducted by the GAO, it has been found that leading credit cards in the market use confusing terminologies in their Terms and Conditions. Included in this study are Citibank, Discover, Chase Bank USA, Bank of America, MBNA America, and Capital One Bank.

Misleading Credit Card Conditions

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How To Evade Identity Theft With Credit Freeze

To avoid identity theft, the best way is to put your credit report on a freeze. How does credit freeze work and why should you consider it?

What is Credit Freeze?

You may already be aware that lenders check a person’s credit report before approving an application. Nevertheless, other companies which you did not send application to can also inquire about your credit report to send you offers. Unfortunately, identity thieves can also disguise themselves as a lending company or a merchant to inquire about your report. Since your credit report contains valuable information about you, thieves can easily steal that information and use it commit fraud against you.

Availing of a credit freeze can protect you from such unauthorized inquiries. How? When you put your report on a freeze, no one- not even you, will be able to access it. If you plan to apply for a credit card or a loan, you can contact the credit bureaus to “unfreeze” your credit report so that your credit card company can check on it.

Take note that it can take 3 to 7 days for a credit bureau to unfreeze your report after you’ve given your go signal. Thus, unfreezing a credit report needs to be at least a week in advance to make sure that it will not cause any delay in the approval of your application.

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Student Credit Card Facts

College credit cards can also be known as student credit cards. A student card is a new term for young people attending college. Older people are aware of credit cards, which are used for various purposes.

College students mostly use these types of credit cards, which are somewhat similar to normal credit cards. A student might have a credit card that had links to his/her parent's account.

Distinctions From Normal Credit Cards:

1. The major difference in these types of credit cards is they are exclusively for school purposes.
2. The second difference is students are not aware about the usage of these cards, as a result, they start spending on unnecessary expenses.
3. Money spent on cards is to be paid back.
4. Students need to be aware of the details of card usage.

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Student Credit Repair Guide

It is not an unknown fact that pursuing a college education is three times more costly than graduating from high school. But the more alarming fact is that most college students graduate each year with unpaid credit card debts amounting to about $13,300 on an average, that doesn’t include their student loan debts! If you’re a college student, surely you should be more conscious about the status of your credit.

But what if you do find yourself incurring student credit debt that you can barely keep up with? What can you do to straighten out the situation? Is there a credit repair guide that can help you get out of this situation on your own? In this article, let’s focus on the steps that you can do yourself to get out of credit card debt.

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Student Credit Card Mistakes

Students are prone to get caught in credit card debt. Let's take a closer look at the following mistakes that students make with their student credit cards.

Signing up for the first student credit cards offer
As you enter college, you might receive a lot of credit card offers from different credit card issuers. If you're not going to think about it carefully, you might just sign up for the first offer that you think sounds good enough for a credit card. It's easy to get one enticed by a student credit card offer. Most credit card companies make a lot of exciting promotions that may be hard to resist. However, if you'll read the complete terms and conditions, you might be surprised to see that there are certain charges that are higher than expected.

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