Credit card late fees capped at $8 under Biden crackdown on 'junk fees'
The Biden administration finalized a rule Tuesday that will close a loophole to slash fees charged by companies from an average of $32 to $8.
Disappointed in the comments here so far. There's a cardinal rule of improv that also works well for many other things in life, politics included: "yes, and".
This is a great change that will save folks money and make the country just a little bit fairer. Celebrate that, and then use the momentum to push for more. This builds alliances and a shared vision, instead of devolving into petty squabbles around direction.
It's definitely a start.
Full disclosure: Trump bad! Biden GOOD!
You’re disappointed but personally, it’s hard NOT to feel a great deal of schadenfreude when:
and is using small, meaningless crumbs to gain that vote when he could have just NOT ENABLED A GENOCIDE.
If this situation doesn’t make you a true believer about there being no hope, I honestly don’t know what will. I lost hope in 2016 and have just been laughing through the bullshit since then. It’s exactly as real as pro wrestling at this point.
I love this reply.
The problem is that supporters of the "business as usual politicians such as this (or pardoning federal inmates convicted of marijuana possession of which there were zero) hold things up like this whenever one criticizes them in order to claim that they're doing so much to help the country.
Throwing scraps on the floor in order to get better polling numbers before an election isn't serving the people.
Then criticize them then and have them stay on topic, and I'll be right there with ya. Right now though, they're not using it as a bludgeon. It's just a nice win. Do you not see how your approach will lead to nothing but cynicism over time? Even if you strive not to, you will begin to view every win as some sort of maneuver to get one over on you.
Biden started the momentum for capping late fees over a year ago. He mentioned it in his State of the Union address. This is just how government works. I don't think having some progress made in March of an election year after initiating desire to make progress over a year ago is scaps on the floor. It is competent governing.
How about fucking "convenience fees" when I do shit like pay my fucking rent?
Always real "convenient" that there's a charge for paying your bills.
We used to pay our rent in 15-20 installments, one every day or two. The office of the apartment building we lived in was on the way to our apartment, so it wasn't any inconvenience for us to just drop a check in their drop box when we passed by, but I like to think it was mildly irritating for them to have to deal with the book-keeping. They asked us not to on multiple occasions but their only online option had a small "convenience charge" attached, so... No, thank you. I'd be happy to use it if they paid me a "convenience fee" for not making them process 20 checks every month.
The real issue is that the apartment building is charged a fee by their payment processor to use electronic payments, and they didn't want to pay it. It is a convenience fee for the bank customer (the building) because they have to do less work cashing checks.
It's stupid to try to pass that to people living in the building. Most personal bank accounts allow you to pay automatically with a check that's mailed for free. Paying by check is not inconvenient for individuals, it's only inconvenient for the person cashing all the checks.
Based
Maybe you do know, but in case you don't, the "convenience fee" is (usually) just the price the vendor has to pay to process a credit card transaction. Because in order to accept credit cards as payment in the first place, they have to pay the credit card network for the privilege.
Providing the exact same service to you is more expensive for them based entirely on the method you use to pay. You bet they're going to pass that extra expense onto you. The alternative is raising their service charge to eat the cost and screwing over people who pay with check or cash. Which is what most retail stores tend to do.
Though, I agree, I'd rather they just do the fucking math and charge a rate that covers their operating expenses. It's shouldn't be my problem to pay their itemized expenses. Just know that if they did so, we'll be charged the same total either way.
It's a similar argument with tipping culture. "Oh, you have to tip, employees rely on it to make ends meet!" Sure, but why is that my problem? If the business can't create a business model that properly pays for the expenses it needs to function, they should go out of business. Raise prices. I'll pay the same as the tip, fine, just stop playing these frivilous smoke and mirror games with my bill.
Yeah. It's all about shifting the blame. Louis Rossmann did some videos on these exact issues.
We have a flat $5 convenience fee added on to our rent regardless of using credit card or bank transfer. Credit card gets and extra % fee on top of that.
Holy shit how are Boe Jiden's consumer protection agencies so based all day long? Not only do we have this EXCELLENT SHIT from the CFPB, we also get the constant anti-trust lawsuits from QUEEN Lina Khan, who is making the FTC relevant again!
Antitrust has been dead for generations, and for the first time in my+grandparents lifetime we see the government trying to reign in the travesty that is American corporatism. Fuck damn I love to see it!
Also capped insulin prices and old people drugs. The man is speedrunning pothole legislation, oh yeah and he literally fucking made a national pothole fixing Bill.
Biden is definitely going down like Carter where 2 decades later everyone benefits from his presidency and are like "fuck he was actually pretty good".
Lemmy leftie morons: JoE BiDeN hAtEs Us!
It's like they ignore all of this news and act like all he's ever done is beat the shit out of rail workers...
Yeah I can't believe he personally crucified union members with railroad spikes, I thought that was overboard, if a little impressive at his age.
I would hold off on any antitrust wins. That record is mixed at best.
They're trying for the first time in forever, I count that as a win
Idk you gotta start somewhere
Leave me out of this 😁
The banking industry opposes caps on overdraft and credit card late fees
I'm shocked
I love all the little things his administration keeps doing, and they're good. I just wish he had some big initiative he could hang his hat on. Little things like this - while good - don't really get people excited and aren't the sea change(s) we need.
I know, a big part of that is congress.
But damn surely there's a lot more ballsy stuff that could have been done by now. Weed not being federally legalized yet is stupid, for one thing.
There are a lot of big things that would be celebrated if our media covered it differently and if Biden was as self-aggrandizing as Trump.
But the little things are really what make me want to vote for Biden again. This is competent governing. In my field, I've seen how the little things lead to big things. Like the approval of off shore wind farms that were stalled under Trump are now approved and constructed leading to the first utility scale offshore wind farm in the US. A huge accomplishment from one little approval.
Trump will probably campaign saying, “In 2024 I reduced junk fees,” and his people will believe him.
Like the approval of off shore wind farms that were stalled under Trump are now approved and constructed leading to the first utility scale offshore wind farm in the US.
And now I understand why my dad randomly decided to talk about "windmills killing whales." As if he ever gave a shit about them before right wing media told him to be mad about it...
Even if this is low hanging fruit, I love him doing stuff like this. I remember how infuriating it is to get some random charge on an account, call up the bank to report fraud, only to be told it's because a savings account needs X dollars in it or some nonsense charge like that.
Do you know how to eat a whale?
One bite at a time.
Great step forward. Now eliminate debit card overdrafting and those fees.
They're capping them too.
Sweet
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said it would be filing a lawsuit against the CFPB "to prevent this misguided and harmful rule from going into effect.”
Don't hold your breath. The current state of the judiciary is nakedly hostile to administrative law generally and bank regulations specifically.
Keep an eye on Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Community Financial Services Association of America, Limited. Might not even have the CFPB for much longer.
You likely will see most small banks end their overdraft programs as they will have too many losses without a way to make it back up on the fee income. Then the community banks will lose customers to the Bank of America type mega banks leading to less competition and worse banking conditions.
And people who spend money they don’t have will still be charged fees. Instead people will get charged fees on the other end for writing bad checks or missing payments due to auto payments being rejected for non sufficient funds.
We need interest caps and a social safety net so people don't have to turn to 29% predatory lending.
That kind of commie talk makes St. Reagan cry.
... will close a loophole to slash late fees charged by credit card companies from an average of $32 to $8, which the agency projects will save $220 annually for 45 million Americans.
Someone double check my math here. But I'm reading this statement to say that 45 million Americans are - on average - late on 10 credit card payments each year. That's probably not a good sign of a healthy economic outlook.
49% of Americans can’t afford a 1000$ emergency. I can see why you would use your credit card, try to pay it with your next paycheck, paycheck is late (because of course it is) then miss credit card payment.
Those are very thin margins that a lot of Americans deal with.
Yeah, but something like that is happening 9 or 10 times a year for 45 million Americans. That's crazy!
$220 / ($32 - $8) looks like a little over 9 to me also. Wow. That's a lot of people struggling, probably trying to stay afloat paying off cards with other cards and missing more payments.
Yeah I freak out if I accidentally pay a card late. I can't imagine the stress of missing that many payments a year. At some point, you're just in a hole and digging to get yourself out.
Watch the credit card companies switch to charging late fees per day instead of per month that you're late.
Even though banks will still be able to charge limited overdraft fees, it won't be able to exceed the banks' losses under the rule. The CFPB has not finalized an amount but is exploring overdraft fees capped at $3, $6, $7, or $14, plus $.50 per transaction. The overdraft rule is currently under review.
They need to move their asses on this one. I think many banks charge $25-35 for an overdraft, an absurd amount of money that is obviously being charged to someone who doesn't have money.
I know somethat charge that DAILY!
Legalized loan sharking.
While they're at it, why not cap processing fees as junk fees? It for sure doesn't cost 2.9% of your grocery bill to facilitate the payment- it's all automated and there's little to no labor involved in the actual processing, it's just collecting economic rent
Or 30% to deliver an app.
Fuck it, just make everything free
Let's cap fees doctors can charge for missing an appointment. Since doctors seem to want to schedule months out sometimes shit comes up and we don't know our schedule months away.
I mean, if you have other shit going on that day, it's kinda on you to cancel or reschedule your appointment before whatever cutoff they have instead of just not going.
You made the commitment to be at your appointment at the scheduled time, and if you no show that's time that could have been spent seeing another patient and money they can't make because of your actions.
I've never had an issue if something came up the day of and I needed to reschedule, as long as I called the moment I knew I might not make it.
The system is overwhelmed and you are scheduled months out because there are so many people waiting ahead of you. If you cancel appropriately that spot can be given to someone else that is waiting. As a patient I want higher punitive fees on people that don't cancel appropriately - not to stick it to them but to encourage them to actually call ahead and cancel so more spots can open up. This is not the same as junk fees.
I'd rather have $20 per hour that a doctor keeps me waiting.
My doctor cancelled on me and pushed my appointment back 30 days, oh by the the way, your referral expires before your next appointment now... Fucking hell.
Full disclosure: Trump bad! Biden good!
Impressive considering he reports directly to MBNA.
The article misrepresents it a bit because he didn't just back it. He actually WROTE that bill.
BAPCPA made it harder for consumers to file for Chapter 7 by imposing a “means test” for Chapter 7 eligibility, and by substantially increasing the cost of filing for bankruptcy.
BAPCPA’s passage was one of Biden’s long-sought goals as a senator. Not only did Biden vote for the legislation four times between 1998 and 2005, but he was so singularly committed to its success that he inserted it into a foreign-relations bill in 2000, and later was the sole Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee to vote for the bill.
Biden also consistently voted against efforts to soften BAPCPA’s blow on vulnerable populations
Lmao
Full disclosure: TRUMP bad! Biden GOOD!.
It’s why I never voted for that piece of shit. The very architect of my indentured servitude (presumably but not demonstrably) wanted and wants my vote. Wouldn’t even piss on him if he was on fire. On fire much like Aaron Bushnell who set himself on fire trying to break through this country’s propaganda wall to bring attention to a literal genocide enabled by the executive orders from this same piece of shit Zionist.
How far gone is electoralism in the US when the incumbent can run virtually unopposed while enthusiastically enabling a historically brutal genocide?
Fun days ahead!
Don't forget this article:
How Joe Biden helped build a financial system that’s great for Delaware banks and terrible for the rest of us.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/11/biden-bankruptcy-president/
Full disclosure: Trump bad! Biden good!
I think people are downvoting you because you didn’t start with that disclosure.
Okay. Why can't they just get rid of the fees altogether? Why do we need to have ANY kind of junk fees for anything? Oh wait, I know. To make rich people richer.
They actually should, because they already change interest far in excess of LIBOR.
Like they're going to just take the lack of those fee profits off the bottom line. Look forward to the new and/or increased yearly fees now.
Even if that was the end result, still better than now as it would be a planned expense rather than an additional weight on people in financial trouble
Have to start somewhere. This might move the fees upfront and keep people from getting trapped when the person doesn’t read all the fine print.
Assuming the total remains similar, its good to move the burden away from people who are struggling.
Just extend that to medical care, and we Gucci... How about outlawing punitive deductibles for health insurance?
Would this push banks to increase interest rates? Mine is already 20% and I've been making my minimum payments.
Idk, I just know banks are schisters who will always find a way to screw the poors.
Probably not. One of the few things people actually look at with credit cards is the interest rate. If one bank raises their rate, they risk losing customers to another bank which is willing to settle for making insane profits, rather than ludicrous ones. Fees like the overdraft ones being limited are a sneaky way to push those profits to plaid, because the suckers using those cards never stop to look at and shop those fees.
they'll just charge 40% interest on that late fee.
And then drop your credit score 120 points for a single missed payment. That's the problem with credit cards that needs to be fixed.
Yes but still won't keep late payments from potentially wrecking your credit.
But they should, that's what credit is for. I understand that one day late shouldn't matter and every time I called my bank they cancelled the fee and the lateness of the payment.
But if you're a month late, it reflects on your credit worthiness