Word: payments
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...someone money. You go to pay him back. He takes your money - and then charges you $15 for having paid him. That might seem unfair. Yet a few years ago, the Government Accountability Office found it to be standard practice for certain credit-card companies when customers made payments over the telephone. The investigatory arm of Congress couldn't say exactly how many card companies imposed such phone-payment fees - nowhere were the firms required to disclose their policies...
...balance you carry - you enter into a legal agreement to that end - but historically, your card company has been able to change that rate for all sorts of reasons. Maybe you charge a greater chunk of your credit limit than normal. Maybe you're late on a payment to some other company. In recent years, the difference between the interest rate folks sign up for and the average penalty rate imposed later on has skyrocketed, from 8.1 percentage points more in 2000 to 16.9 points more in 2008, according to the Center for Responsible Lending. (Read a brief history...
...changes would be more heavy-handed. Those phone-payment fees would be prohibited outright (unless a customer asks for expedited service, a genuine additional cost which the card company would be allowed to pass along). It could also be substantially harder to market or sell credit cards to young people (those under either...
...products of the news will challenge the government's plan to help people stay in their homes through programs like mortgage payment modifications. The programs were meant to build a foundation under housing prices and keep worthy homeowners in their houses by reducing monthly payments. But, homes in foreclosure at not candidates for the assistance...
...group of Senators introduced a bill that would have required credit-card companies to state on each billing statement how long it would take a person to pay off his balance and how much it would cost in principal and interest should he make only the minimum required payment each month. (That's another psychological trip-up: having a low minimum payment printed on the statement in a big font ratchets down our perception of how much we should be paying off, meaning we carry higher balances for longer.) That bill never went anywhere, but a similar provision...