Hidden Credit Card Fees to Watch For

Is Your Credit Card Company Trying to Nickel and Dime You?

Since the new credit card laws have gone into effect, credit card companies are looking for just about every opportunity to “nickel and dime” their customers. If you don’t read the terms of your contract carefully, you might find that you are in violation, which will more than likely cost you money.

Attorney Duncan Douglas notes that credit card companies are continuously working on ways to increase their fee revenues, from lowering credit limits to switching from fixed to variable interest rates.

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Watch out for these obscure fees:

1. Foreign Transaction Fees
A foreign transaction is when your credit card is processes in a foreign country. The issue arises when you haven’t left the country and find there is a fee associated with a recent transaction. If your card is run in a foreign country for a transaction you’ve made online, you most likely will pay upwards of 3 percent of the total charge. Visa and MasterCard assess this fee and pass the cost on to your bank, depending on your bank you may be paying this fee plus a “me too” fee of their own.

2. Reward Redemption Fees
As the name suggests, this is a fee for when you decide to redeem your credit card rewards; most commonly airline miles. Most airlines will not charge the cardholder redemption fees if booking is completed online, which isn’t the case for those who choose to book their tickets over the phone or at a ticket counter. Depending on the credit card company, a fee of $20 to $50 may apply.

3. Reward Recovery Fees
How about a charge to reinstate your rewards program after making just one late payment? That’s exactly what many American Express cardholders must contend with. Not as bad as having your rewards taken away and not given back at all, because you made one late payment, which is what many other credit card companies are doing. This “late payment” penalty can cost you as much as $30.

4. Activity Fees
Activity fees are actually fees assessed to cardholders for inactivity. In other words, if you don’t use your card to make a certain amount of transactions, or meet a certain dollar spending amount, you may just have to pay for it. While this cheap tactic was addressed by the Credit CARD Act, credit card companies found that by charging an annual fee then rebating the cardholder when a certain annual dollar amount is met, will work just as good.

5. Payment Protection Fees
This is a type of insurance plan to protect cardholders who may have found financial hardships, become unemployed, or have fallen ill. If the cardholder carries this form of insurance, also known as credit shield, payment protection, and credit safeguarding, minimum payments will be made and finance charges will be suspended. Cost is about 80 cents to $1 for every $100 carried as a balance. So… For every $1,000 you carry on your balance you can expect to spend $8 to $10 per month.

6. Paper Statement Fees
This one I really like. Remember when banks and credit card companies would charge a “paperless statement fee”? This was their way of saving a buck and charging you at the same time for simply not sending a monthly statement to your house and emailing it to you instead. Well, now you have a fee if you do want to receive that statement by mail. A fee of around $9 per month if you’re a Bank of America customer. Most credit card companies charge about a tenth of that.

Related Information
Daily Show on BofA’s Hidden Credit Card Fees
Hidden Credit & Debit Card Fees Cost Consumers Big Time
Six Credit Card Fees you Might Not Know About
As Wallets Open For Haiti, Credit Card Companies Take A Big Cut
Reforms Considered for Hidden Credit Card Processing Fees

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Tags: Activity Fees, American Express, Discover, Duncan Douglas, Foreign Transaction Fees, Foreign Usage Fees, Inactivity Fees, MasterCard Credit Cards, Paper Statement Fees, Payment Protection Fees, Reward Recovery Fees, Reward Redemption Fees, Visa Credit Cards

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