Your Credit Card Company May Change Terms On You

When you sign up for a new credit card you will hopefully read through the terms and agreements of the credit card application very carefully. That’s because you want to know how to properly use the credit card and what the interest rates and fees are when you do so. While it’s great that you are careful to make sure that you understand these things when you first get the card, you can’t simply stop there. You have to always be aware of what is going on with your credit cards because of the simple fact that your credit card company has the right to change those terms on you almost any time that they wish to do so.

Credit card companies reserve the right to make changes to the interest rates and fees associated with your card. Sometimes this occurs as a result of something that you have done. For example, if you miss a payment then you might trigger a clause in your agreement that increases your interest rate. But sometimes it’s due simply to the changes that are taking place on the part of the credit card company. The credit card company is required to notify you of these changes but it is perfectly legal for them to go ahead and make them assuming that they follow the letter of the law in doing so and they properly inform you of what they have done.

Since it is a requirement that the credit card companies must inform you of any changes to your credit card agreement, it is highly important that you always read the information that is coming to you from your credit card company. Buried somewhere in your statement or in the disclosure forms that are periodically sent to you by your credit card company might be information about the fact that your credit card is changing. If you don’t bother to read those written materials then you may not realize that your interest rate has gone up or new fees have been attached to your card until it’s too late and you’ve already been charged for them according to the new terms of the credit card.

So what can you do if you do pay close attention to those statements and you find out that your credit card terms are changing. The first thing that you want to do is make sure that you understand the changes and how they impact you. An increase in your interest rate matters if you are carrying a balance on the card but isn’t a huge deal if you always pay off your balance in full each month. If the change is going to impact you, you should look for any information that says that you can opt out of the changes as that is sometimes made available due to certain credit card laws. Barring that, you should call and complain about the changes using what is hopefully a good credit history to argue your case. If worse comes to worst, you can always try to switch over to a new credit card with better terms than those now being offered by your company.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 10th, 2008 at 12:40 pm and is filed under Tips & Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.