Today’s Friday Financial News focuses on a very interesting article, brought to my attention by a friend of mine, Nicole Maxwell (a local Realtor listed under our links section on the website). It’s an article from USA Today, titled Latest bank fee is for paying off credit card on time every month by: Sandra Block.
The article highlights that Bank of America will start charging an annual fee (next year) on card holders, some of whom have either never carried a balance or never paid late. The fee will range from $29 to $99. And apparently Citigroup has already started charging annual fees to those card holders who don’t put a charge a specific amount to their cards per year! Can we say ridiculous?? They are starting to charge us for good behavior? What a crock. I mean, I understand that as a business they need to make money on all of their customers, and as consumers we have the right to switch, but with the bad “rep” these people have right now, you would think they wouldn’t want to upset the customers they have that can actually pay their bills. A little money off of a responsible cardholder is better than none off of the cardholder in bankruptcy court if you ask me.
So, what’s the deal? These fees are the credit card industry’s response to credit card legislation (voted on earlier this year). Basically, they need ways to raise income before the new rules take effect in February, and this looks like a viable option. It’s my opinion that they’ve got to be desperate for new revenue streams, since they’ve targeted card holders with good credit ratings, good credit history and a knack for paying their bills off at the end of the month.
The article goes into detail on ways to tackle this problem if you find yourself among those with a new annual fee for “good behavior”. Use those if you must, but as you know, your favorite southern couple would just rather you didn’t have/use credit cards at all!
