If you have, you may have gotten a diatribe about how new government regulations now prevent your credit card company from doing all kinds of nice things that they wanted to do for you. Anybody else get this. Here's my two examples:
A few weeks ago, i called my credit card company when i noticed a 65 dollar annual fee attached to my card. i remembered that when i signed up for the card the ad said in bold letters NO ANNUAL FEE. I also never noticed one on my statement before, so i called to ask about it. I was told that there was always a fee, it was waived for the first year, but that i had paid the fee for two years straight. i went back through my statements and lo and behold stuck in the middle of my list of charges (the date of the charge was exactly in the middle of the statement period) was an annual fee. i had overlooked it before the new credit card legislation made them put the charge in a special box.
I was a bit annoyed at being tricked. Especially since i received the "platinum card" which i (falsely) assumed was the best card without the annual fee. No, i was told, the "world card" is the one with no fee - i didn't qualify for that one. So, in the end perhaps you can say it was my fault for not paying close enough attention and my inability to read 3 pt font, but let us also acknowledge that the company purposely tried to deceive me - first by the bait and switch and then by skillfully hiding the fee. I mentioned this to the costumer service rep and asked if there were any other fees i wasn't aware of, noting that "well, at least, you have to disclose them all now." He then began to tell me how bad the new bill was because among other things there was no more "overdraft protection".
I told him i knew what "overdraft protection" was and thought it was a scam. He informed me that most customers were very upset by the change because it would mean their card could be rejected resulting in shame and embarrassment. I mentioned this to a friend who said his company told him the same nonsense. I've heard a lot of bs from customer service reps but the idea that people like being charged 40 dollars for a cup of coffee rather than have the kid at starbucks think ill of them takes the cake - is this part of the script now?
My brother called his company about some charges and his sky high interest rate. they then told him while they would like to lower his 25% interest rate - congress won't allow them to change the rates during introductory periods anymore.
You see people, credit card companies just want to help you, but now mean congress and obama won't let them help you. Has anyone else ran into this nonsense??