According to a recent article in Money Talk News, credit card issuers are patting themselves on the back after a new report shows they’ve gotten rid of many “unfair” or “deceptive” practices consumers complained about.

My recent credit card statements have announced how the bank is now “allowing” me to opt in to “overdraft protection.” They don’t mention that it’s now the law, in the hope that I’ll think they are doing it to be nice. They’re also telling me that they won’t raise my interest rates on existing balances. Same deal. It’s now the law, not their great customer satisfaction goal.

The fact is that the CARD Act forced the banks to make these changes. To add to that, the banks are finding other ways to tack on fees to make up for the lost revenue. Watch for these:

We talked about some of the things they pulled before the law went into effect. Now they need to take a different road. Never forget that banks are in business to make money–lots of money. Have you ever seen a less than perfect bank building? Fees that the new federal laws won’t allow will be replaced by others. You can count on it.

Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island recently proposed an amendment to the financial regulation bill that’s being worked on in the Senate. That amendment would have capped the interest rate that credit card issuing banks could charge consumers. It would have limited the interest rate to the cap set by individual States.

Currently, credit card interest rates are limited by the State in which the issuer is headquartered. Delaware, North Dakota, and perhaps a few others, have either a high limit or no limits at all and major credit card issuers have set up corporate headquarters in those States.

Late yesterday, that amendment was rejected by the Senate. Once again, government has folded to the wishes of the big money banks over the needs of their hard working constituents. We can assume that someone’s pocket is a bit greener this morning. I applaud Sen. Whitehouse for the effort.

Today, February 22, 2010 the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act is now effective. The goal of the law was to give consumers some measure of protection from the predatory lending practices of card issuing banks. As discussed in this blog before, it’s only marginally successful at best. I predicted that the banks would be scrambling to find other ways to milk you of your cash and they’ve been quite successful at it.

Over the past several months, a huge number of banks have jacked their interest rates to ridiculous levels and even the good payers have been hit. In fact, the good payers are the ones the banks are trying to get more money from.

One of the last-minute players in the money-grab game is Citibank. They announced on Friday that they would be charging cardholders (that’s you) a $60 annual fee if they don’t charge at least $2,400 worth of purchases a year. Citi added this fee in a test market back in November and apparently not enough people complained so they are assuming, I guess, that nobody minded and they are rolling it out to all their customers in April.

My guess is that their “Test market” consisted of hand picked accounts that already had more than the $2400 in outstanding balances Those cardholders wouldn’t get hit with the extra fee so why would they complain. Of course, low-use fees aren’t covered by the CARD act.

Don’t be surprised if the issuers continue to find new fees to take your money.

The Government thought they were doing us a favor passing the new Credit card legislation. But the banks are haveing no trouble getting around it. To the tune of a 79.9% interest rate. First Premier Bank is doing just that. They have to because in February when the new law goes into effect, they can’t charge $256 in fees on a new $250 credit line.

Don’t believe me. Read the full story here.

I know that First PREMIER® Bank specializes in giving credit cards to those who have less than ideal credit scores, but aren’t those the same people that can least afford terms like this?

Annual Percentage Rate for Purchases and Cash Advances 9.9%

So far so good. I’d take a 9.9% card any day!

Now it gets interesting…

Account Set-up Fee:      $29.00 (one-time fee)
Program Fee:             $95.00 (one-time fee)
Annual Fee:              $48.00
Monthly Servicing Fee:   $ 7.00  

All of these fees are immediately placed against your available credit which, according to their Truth in Lending disclosure, will be a “minimum of $250.” So you too can have a grand total of $71.00 of available credit and $179 of debt.

If you actually falls for this and charge more than $71 during the first month, you’ll get hit with a $29 over-limit fee. So even if you pay off the entire first month purchase you’ll be down to $42 of available credit.

Of course First PREMIER® Bank, being as generous as they are, will let you borrow cash against your available credit. A whopping 10% of your assigned credit limit. That’s $25 in cash. You’ll pay an additional $5.00 or 3% (in this case, $5.00) on the $25 borrowed.

I could probably get better terms pawning my old shoes it Peter’s Pawn Palace.

Oh —- Just in case you aren’t believing this unbelievable stuff, you can see it for yourself here.