Most of the much hyped credit card legislation went in to effect today, and the Huffington Post has put together a summary of all the new changes consumers should be aware of. Although many of these changes are beneficial to most Americans, credit companies will always find ways to get more money from their customers, so it is important to understand these new regulations. I have included a section of their article below, but be sure to checkout the full text at Huffington Post.com.
As of today, February 22nd, all credit card companies must do the following:
Keep all due dates the same on your credit card: Now you can better plan for your credit card payments each month without fear of being late because they have arbitrarily changed the grace period.
Provide you 45 days notice before they raise rates: While there are no limits as to how high the rates can go and they can still jack up your interest rates, at least you now have much more time to prepare for these rate increases.
Younger adults under the age of 21 will find it much harder to obtain a credit card: I used to have a portion of my workshop for college freshmen that cautioned them against credit card companies that solicited their business... that practice will severely be limited because of this age restriction.