Them. there are no longer annual expirations dates. you have five years to use the money on the card regardless of what the current expiration date is. know you have five years to use it but some will still charge you an inactivity fee if you don t touch it. go and dabble and use $5 or $10 here and there to keep it active to avoid the fees. but you have five years to use the money. thank you very much for the update. you re welcome. shannon: florida republicans bill mccullum and rick scott have spend more than $50 million making it the most expensive primary in florida history. mccollum s camp claims scott spent more than $5 million in tv ads this week alone. joining us is todd harris, advisor t marco rubio s senate
Dirty tricks ever since his website published documents from the afghanistan war. a catastrophe hit, affecting 450,000 residents to flee. the worst flooding in decade affected, killing more than 1500 people and leaving at least 6 million homeless. meanwhile, in an interview with a pakistan television station, secretary of state, hillary clinton says this extreme weather is a seen that climate change is getting worse. new federal regulations go into effect today for credit card companies and the rules stem from the federal credit card accountability and responsibility and disclosure act signed into law last year. companies will now be banned from charging you penalty fees that are larger than your violations. issuers will also no longer be able to charge you inactivity fee for not using your credit card. and if a credit card company raises your interest rate, it will have to tell you why.
Increases and inactivity fees. now, to start, the new rules say late payment penalties can t be more than $25 or the amount of your late payment. so if you re late on say $20. your penalty fee cannot be more than $20. and in addition, you credit card company can no longer hit you with an inactivity fee for not using the card. if your card decides to increase the rate because of excessive late payments, for instance, you need to be told why. they can no longer just do th blindly and six month later you have the right to review. if you corrected bad behavior and want the rate lowered the company must comply within 45 days of evaluation. previously if they hiked the rate, there was no obligation to look at it again and finally, the new law says that all gift cards sold starting sunday must be good for at least five years. even if the cards have an expiration date. under the new law, dormancy fees can only be assessed if you haven t used the card in a year. back to you. julie: tracy byrn
You of this. they have to tell you they are raising their rates. six months after they raise your rates presuming you paid on time and you got yourself back into good standing you have a right to have it reviewed and if you deserve it, it can be lowered again. keep in mind, they may not decrease it 10% but six months later you are reviewed and you get some sort of rate decrease. gregg: now gift cards. they can be a really terrific thing, but they can also be a scam. so what about the new protections? so many people don t use them. put them away for a rainy day and you are getting charged inactivity fees for not using the cards. if you get a card today you have up to five years to use it. it gives you a lot of time to use it. these gift card companies will charge some sort of inactivity
Conditions. kids can t get the credit cards any more. unless they can show they can pay down the debt. and no more over-the-limit fees, unless you opt in. there s a huge amount of changes going into effect on monday. really good for consumers and the reason they were there for credit card companies is they made them money. to the tune of like $12 billion, okay. so how are they going to recoup these losses? ritz interesting. because any time there is this legislation, the credit card companies will find ways around it and they gouge you in other ways. in anticipation of this legislation going into effect, the credit card companies have been doing things like switching customers from fixed-rate cards to variable-rate cards. and they imposed inactivity fees. if you don t use your card, you get hit with an inactivity fee. and annual fees have started to come back. $30 to $90 if you don t charge a certain amount over the course of the year. like $2400. and balance transfers? they re bec