Banks Continue to Punish Credit Card Holders Who Pay On Time

Thursday, October 29, 2009

In an effort to beat new banking regulations going into effect in February, some credit card companies are rushing to impose new fees on customers—who pay on time. Citibank is jacking up interest rates as high as 30% on accounts in good standing, and charging annual fees to card holders who don’t spend enough of their available credit. Bank of America will begin next year charging a small number of customers an “experimental” annual fee, ranging from $29 to $99. Other banks are charging inactivity fees if customers don’t wrack up debt at certain times of the year.  

 
Even consumers who work for banks are aghast at some of the changes. “If we ran our bank the way Citi runs theirs, we wouldn’t be in business,” Ed Myska, executive vice president of El Segundo, California’s Bank of Manhattan, told the Los Angeles Times. “Our clients wouldn’t put up with it—and they shouldn’t have to. Fees and rates should be fair.”
-Noel Brinkerhoff
 
Citibank Shows Why Credit Card Holders Need Protection (by David Lazarus, Los Angeles Times)
Credit Cards: Punishing Those Who Pay On-Time (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)

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