Word: cards
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...rules than no rules, but the episode is a good reminder of how difficult it can be to pass effective financial regulation, even for something as minor and clearly exploitative as overdraft protection services. It doesn’t make you optimistic about ever setting good rules on credit cards, whose effect on our society is far more pernicious. Credit-card regulation passed last spring was a good start but ultimately does little more than limit banks’ ability to market credit cards to students and require them to warn you before they do something like raise your interest...
...monitor to witness a replay of French star Zinedine Zidane head-butting Italian rival Marco Materazzi to the ground. Shocked at the violence - and ignoring FIFA rules forbidding use of replays - the assistant referee signaled the offense to his unsuspecting central official, who promptly slapped Zidane with a red card. Few have faulted that sanctioning of an outrageous foul that the official never actually saw. Let's go to the videotape...
...status quo represented a certain exploitation of which many card customers were unaware. Customers were often charged lofty fees they would certainly not have agreed to if they understood them...
Under the Fed’s new regulations, companies must now make debit-card policies—especially fees—explicitly clear through frequent notices to customers, without whose permission overdraft charges can no longer be issued. While these notices have yet to circulate, they are thankfully required to be lucid, clear, and forthcoming with the full extent of policies regarding fees. We hope that these new measures will have their desired effect and reduce the exploitation so common under previous card-company policies...
...perhaps the best thing about the Fed’s new mandate is that it increases choice for consumers, not to mention ensuring that customers will actually want the supposed “services” they will receive from their card companies. A better understanding of the nuances and implications of each respective card policy will create a more financially-literate pool of customers much more aware of the decisions they make and the impact of those decisions. In that sense, while the Fed has at once protected customers nationwide from continued abuse, it has also done much...