I have a credit card for buying online from US and UK websites. It’s far cheaper than sending money via transfer, and several years back when I got it, paypal wasn’t as widespread as now (still many merchants as opposed to private sellers want cheque or credit card.)
Most banks in Germany offer credit cards (MasterCard or Visa) for a yearly fee plus the overdraft interest, but I compare of course and the most I paid was a yearly fee of 10 Euros. Then I was offered a Creditcard with no fee and took it.
I’m still amazed, with the average yearly fee about 35 - 40 Euros, that some companies offer special CCs and when I look at the small print, the yearly fee is 75 or 80 Euros! Obviously, enough people are inexperienced enough to not read the small print of the great offer, or think it means something wonderful to be offered a credit card which makes you special or something…
That’s about when I got mine too, and I also remember an annual fee. I cannot remember exactly what that fee was, but $18.00 would be in the ballpark. IIRC, one of my cards also had a small per-use fee of ten cents.
All that disappeared in a few years; at least for my cards. Guess it didn’t make them as much money as they thought, or too many people complained.
I doubt you will find it on the Customer Service page of any credit lender, but I have heard that the term is indeed used within the industry, with (one would hope) at least a modicum of irony.
Most credit cards in Canada seem to offer two flavours of the same cards: One with an annual fee and lower interest rate, and one with no annual fee and a higher rate. I have two no-fee Visa cards; one is 14.9% and the other 19.5%, and the higher one also gives me Scene (movie) points, from which I’ve already accrued enough points for two free nights out at the movies. They’re both available in 11% and 16% flavours with a $35 annual fee, too.
I’d have a big problem if they wanted to charge me a monthly fee for paying off my balance on time though.
In all of my years of experience working in finance and in the business for one of the largest credit card companies in the world, I have never heard this term used nor ever heard of anyone who had ever heard it used.
I don’t recall where I first heard it, but some rudimentary googling turned up that a primary source for publicizing the term was a PBS/Frontline documentary. It’s listed on this page, along with the opposite term “revolver,” or a customer who does not pay off his full balance each month.
I also have heard some will now charge if your running balance is to low so to avoid the fees you have to buy more stuff. Isn’t this how we got into this mess?
Congress is involved because they passed the Credit CARD Act that supposedly will help consumers against credit card companies. We know that when a company is told to make less money they’ll just accept the loss and not change the way they do business or pass the costs onto consumers in other ways. :rolleyes:
However that CARD Act doesn’t take effect until February and banks are gouging customers now, because they can. So now Congress is trying to pass legislation to fix the other legislation.
Why would they charge a fee to just the people who pay off their balance every month, but not to people who don’t, rather than just adding a new fee for all customers? The people who don’t pay off their balance every month aren’t put off by the interest they’re paying, so why would you expect a lot of them to be put off by another fee? The people who are sensitive to interest and fees tend to be the ones who pay off their balance every month. Plus, more credit card users think they will (or should) pay off their balance every month than actually do. Your credit card would lose some of those customers who wouldn’t pay off their bill every month but think they would. It doesn’t make sense, if you think about it.
Plus, it’s easy to find a workaround. Pay off all but $1 of your balance every month.
Most of the people in the US who have high-annual-fee cards are people with shitty credit scores that won’t qualify them for low- or no-fee cards. It’s probably the same way in Germany.
You have a credit card issued by Citibank which you use for shopping
You borrow money from Citibank through the credit card
You pay back the money in a timely fashion, so that there are no interest charges
So Citibank has made a small fee on the transaction, and in your opinion, that is enough.
However, from Citibank’s view, that is not enough, and they are contacting you regarding changing the terms of the contract. Citibank says that if you do not incur interest charges, then they will charge you a fee. They do this because they expect to make money on these cards above and beyond the transaction fees, and you, as a customer, are not meeting their return on investment. Citibank does not want to provide you with a free line of credit for 3.5 weeks every month. So you are given a choice of keeping the convenience of a charge card and paying a fee, or of losing the convenience and avoiding the fee.
I don’t see the problem, other than you want to bitch and moan. And I certainly don’t see what this has to do with congress in banks’ pockets (or banks run by congress).
Just because someone carries a balance doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be put off by an extra fee on top of that, especially, if they’re trying to pay down that balance.
Even with the Credit CARD Act of 2009, which I read on wiki, I still don’t see how this in a Congress issue.
Neither covers the situation.
Simply put, the bank is not making enough of a profit (assuming the transaction fees are profitable and don’t just covering operating costs). I have absolutely no problem with any business excising unprofitable customers.
Now find a real rant about bank gouging (like many of the things covered by the bill), and I’m with you. This, however, is weak.
Also, Anne, the banks want to lose the accounts that pay off every month. They want to keep people who carry balances. So it makes sense, from the banks’ point of view, to only charge the customers they don’t like.
It’s absolutely non of Congress’ business. It is, however, a stupid business decision- they’re trying to gouge good customers because they lost a shit ton of money extending ill-advised credit offers to lousy customers.
