Credit Card Relief to Relieve You of Debt

By now you’ve heard about the Credit CARD Act of 2009. It’s brought some nice changes to our credit card bills and a whole lot of credit card relief. Let’s take a little look at some of the changes shall we?

One of the big things is timely notification. In the past credit card companies could mail your monthly statement to you 14 days before the due date and due to some of their (shall we say) less than efficient operations, that sometimes meant you had less than a week to make your payment. Now they have to mail those pesky bills 21 days in advance so we all have a chance to plan a little better.

Here’s another huge change. Credit card companies can’t raise the interest rates on existing balances unless the customer has been delinquent for more than 60 days. That means no more “surprise-surprise” increases you never saw coming. And it means that the money you’ve essentially borrowed via your credit card will have a stable interest rate for the entire time it takes you to pay it back.

The biggest change of all (in my opinion) is in the way banks and credit card companies must now treat young borrowers. Kids under 21 will no longer be hoodwinked into getting one or more credit cards long before they either know how to use them properly or can afford to use them. The only way they’ll be able to get a card is if they can get a cosigner.

This has been one of my pet peeves. I’ve watched credit card companies bombard college students for years with all kinds of advertising and implied promises. Many students get one, two, even three or more credit cards when they have no concept of what they’re getting into. The practice has created a sort of financial indentured servitude among many young people as they soon find that getting rid of the debt can take several if not many years. This was one change that was sorely needed.

So how did the new law affect you? Have you found your monthly statements easier to read? Has the new payback information section scared you into putting your credit cards in a sock drawer and switching to prepaid debit cards instead? The good news is that as consumers, we’re all just a little bit better off than we were before – and that’s a relief!