I was just watching this brief clip on TV that showed in the US apparently people are trying to work on a bill that would prevent credit card companies from being able to slap on late penalties or increase one’s interest rate for credit card users who don’t pay their bills on time without some kind of warning such as a 45 day notice.
They then interviewed some people and used examples such as how a person was one day late and as a result his interest rate went up by over 10% and other things such as a one time late penalty fee. From a consumer point of view I suppose it can be a good thing. At the same time though, this is one of those things where I tend to ask how much is too much in terms of giving people too much lenience for issues like this?
I’m sure there are many people that this type of bill would help whereas some people will just use it as another way to procrastinate from having to pay a bill on time I’d say. So in that sense it wouldn’t be helping the overall picture. I personally always viewed a credit card as a privilege and not a necessity and so if you have a hard time managing it then maybe it isn’t the right time to have one.