Is credit card fee changed according to the new law?
A well designed Credit Card Act with provisions of helping consumers to regulate late fee charged on the credit cards. The law was signed last year which includes Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act of 2009. Aiming to help consumers from the charges of late fee on the cards, the law is meant to support consumers by all means.
Credit card companies quite often change due date on their account without considering the users facility. So that, it may cause consumers to miss the due date and liable for late fee and interest rate on the balance. This unfair practice has been followed by large number of credit card companies just for charging late fee on your card account.
Users must be given time to pay bills.
With the enforcement of new law, creditors shall mail the statement 21 days before the due date. Users can not charged late fee unless the billing statement reaches within the 21 days of due date. According to the new law billing statement shall reach the users in advance before the due date and facilitate them to pay in time.
At the same time billing statement should contain information regarding penalties and late payment deadlines.
If the credit account is charged late payment fee, simultaneously, billing due date shall be mentioned in the billing statement. According to the law, if the interest on late payment is increased, such details of penalty charges shall be mentioned in the billing statement.
Details of late fee and penalties must be visibly placed in the billing statement for easy identification by the users.
Grace Period
If grace period is allowed on your credit card, it is better to pay off balance fully within the grace period to avoid finance charges. However, billing statement shall be mailed 21 days in advance to the credit period for card holders to make use of grace period.
Payments
The new provisions of law envisages that in case billing statement is received by 5 PM on the due date, they are to be credited in time. This regulation is imposed in response to some of the companies who mention 11 AM as due date and charge late fee for payments received after 11 AM.
In case payments are received on holidays or off days, payment is considered to be on time and can not be charged penalty. To quote an example, if due date falls on Saturday and payment is received by creditor on Monday, the payment is considered to be on time. In addition, payments made to the local branch is also considered to be paid on the same day.
Even though, late fee charged by the companies may not change but the Credit Card Act 2009 facilitates to reduce the number of chances where creditors can charge late fee on a plea.
Extra guidance about fee credit cards and low apr credit card
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