New Game, Same Old Credit Card Tricks And Traps.

Looks like the Credit CARD Act of 2009 isn’t quite putting an end to all those sneaky and unfair credit card tricks. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, credit card companies are still up to their old tricks, albeit in a different guise.

• Shortened payment periods. The CARD Act of 2009 mandates that credit card companies must allow at least 21 days between the time the bill is mailed and the payment due date, but apparently some companies aren’t adhering to that.

• Sunday due dates. The CARD Act attempts to force credit card companies not to process payments on Sundays, since there is no US Postal delivery, but some banks are saying they are open . for business regardless, and if due dates fall on a Sunday, they fall on a Sunday.

• Low-limit cards. Since the CARD Act prohibits issuers from charging the outsized fees for charging over the limit on low-limit cards, some issuers are creating new processing and overdraft fees.

• Fake inactivity fees. It’s being called an annual fee that is waived when the cardholder spends a certain minimum amount, but that sounds an awful lot like an inactivity fee.

• Rebate offers. Some card companies are offering to refund finance charges when users pay on time, but such offers can quickly – and unexpectedly – be revoked, only to leave the cardholder holding a much larger charge than he anticipated.

Avoiding these traps and pitfalls is simple, but not easy. It’s for reasons like these that you should avoid carrying a balance at all costs. If you can’t do that, then it may not be a bad idea to cut up the card altogether. Just don’t cancel the account.

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• How Your Identity Gets Stolen (and What to Do About it).
• Worst Credit Cards for 2010.