... will close a loophole to slash late fees charged by credit card companies from an average of $32 to $8, which the agency projects will save $220 annually for 45 million Americans.
Someone double check my math here. But I'm reading this statement to say that 45 million Americans are - on average - late on 10 credit card payments each year. That's probably not a good sign of a healthy economic outlook.
$220 / ($32 - $8) looks like a little over 9 to me also. Wow. That's a lot of people struggling, probably trying to stay afloat paying off cards with other cards and missing more payments.
Yeah I freak out if I accidentally pay a card late. I can't imagine the stress of missing that many payments a year. At some point, you're just in a hole and digging to get yourself out.
But, but, but all the news stations are saying the economy is the best it's ever been! That means there is no economic hardship right now, right? Right?
49% of Americans can’t afford a 1000$ emergency. I can see why you would use your credit card, try to pay it with your next paycheck, paycheck is late (because of course it is) then miss credit card payment.
Those are very thin margins that a lot of Americans deal with.
While they're at it, why not cap processing fees as junk fees?
It for sure doesn't cost 2.9% of your grocery bill to facilitate the payment- it's all automated and there's little to no labor involved in the actual processing, it's just collecting economic rent
But they should, that's what credit is for. I understand that one day late shouldn't matter and every time I called my bank they cancelled the fee and the lateness of the payment.
But if you're a month late, it reflects on your credit worthiness
Disappointed in the comments here so far. There's a cardinal rule of improv that also works well for many other things in life, politics included: "yes, and".
This is a great change that will save folks money and make the country just a little bit fairer. Celebrate that, and then use the momentum to push for more. This builds alliances and a shared vision, instead of devolving into petty squabbles around direction.
The problem is that supporters of the "business as usual politicians such as this (or pardoning federal inmates convicted of marijuana possession of which there were zero) hold things up like this whenever one criticizes them in order to claim that they're doing so much to help the country.
Throwing scraps on the floor in order to get better polling numbers before an election isn't serving the people.
Okay. Why can't they just get rid of the fees altogether? Why do we need to have ANY kind of junk fees for anything? Oh wait, I know. To make rich people richer.
Sure, if it's annual 1000% that's bullshit and predatory. But let's not go overboard and cap it at at 5% because interest rates fluctuate and some people won't get credit unless the rate is a bit higher
We used to pay our rent in 15-20 installments, one every day or two. The office of the apartment building we lived in was on the way to our apartment, so it wasn't any inconvenience for us to just drop a check in their drop box when we passed by, but I like to think it was mildly irritating for them to have to deal with the book-keeping. They asked us not to on multiple occasions but their only online option had a small "convenience charge" attached, so... No, thank you. I'd be happy to use it if they paid me a "convenience fee" for not making them process 20 checks every month.
That sounds like a nightmare for bookkeeping... I'm not sure if it's genius, evil, or both.
How did you keep track of which checks were cashed, and which ones were pending???
Our bank had a really nice web interface for that. We could just go to the website and see all of the checks, the amounts, and the dates they were cashed, and we weren't using checks for any other purpose, so there wasn't anything else diluting the list. They could have made it a hassle for us by selectively "losing" some occasionally, I suppose, but they never did.
The real issue is that the apartment building is charged a fee by their payment processor to use electronic payments, and they didn't want to pay it. It is a convenience fee for the bank customer (the building) because they have to do less work cashing checks.
It's stupid to try to pass that to people living in the building. Most personal bank accounts allow you to pay automatically with a check that's mailed for free. Paying by check is not inconvenient for individuals, it's only inconvenient for the person cashing all the checks.
The issue is further up the chain but it's an issue nonetheless. Banks want to go back to physical transactions about as much as people do, so in reality they should be charging for the physical to get people to move to digital.
It's safer, faster, and encourages more spending, just like a credit card does.
But the fees for check processing were already baked into the system before credit cards even existed, so they're not allowed to charge extra for a check, no matter how much they want to be rid of them.
Let's cap fees doctors can charge for missing an appointment. Since doctors seem to want to schedule months out sometimes shit comes up and we don't know our schedule months away.
I mean, if you have other shit going on that day, it's kinda on you to cancel or reschedule your appointment before whatever cutoff they have instead of just not going.
You made the commitment to be at your appointment at the scheduled time, and if you no show that's time that could have been spent seeing another patient and money they can't make because of your actions.
I've never had an issue if something came up the day of and I needed to reschedule, as long as I called the moment I knew I might not make it.
how come I don’t see anyone but the nurse for two hours?
Because the doctor showed up late.
They overbooked / double booked (maybe with a last minute urgent caller or maybe just because they know they will have so many no shows.)
Maybe the medical assistants called out and the processing time for people is backed up.
Maybe they decided to flirt with a patient or two or took an extra long bathroom break.
Maybe they had a family emergency and had to step out or take a call.
Maybe a patient called in with a critical need and they had to prioritize that because it's a life and death situation or something.
Maybe they farted and it wasn't just a fart.
Maybe they don't like you.
Maybe their car was towed because their medical bills are piling up with insane interest and they weren't able to work as much as they needed to make the bills the last few months and they needed to take a bicycle
