credit card interest rates

Banks lost billions in the financial crisis, and now face profit-squeezing regulations. And make no mistake: They're looking at your balance to fix their bottom lines. Here are four ways your bank takes your money, and what you can do to hold on to more of your hard-earned cash.

If you read enough advice columns, one fact will come through loud and clear: Personal finance experts hate lattes. But you don't have to give up your favorite addictions to reach your financial goals. And if you turn cutting costs into a crusade, you risk cutting into your quality of life.

Bank of America credit card holders, beware. If you're late on a monthly payment, that little "oops" might become a big "ouch": Your future balances could be subject to a penalty rate of nearly 30%. But the penalty rate will not be applied to previous balances.

Today (Feb. 22) marks the first anniversary of the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act. Passed in 2009 to protect American consumers from predatory credit card practices and enacted last year, this piece of federal legislation has proven to be something of a...

My friend Alice had been a loyal, responsible user of her credit card since 1998. While she normally paid off her monthly bill in full, she had recently lost her job and as a result she was currently carrying a balance of about $10,000. Her interest rate had always been rather low -- about 9% --...

If you feel like you're paying higher credit card APRs than you were just a couple of years ago, it's not just your imagination. According to new data, the average credit card interest rate has climbed to an all-time high recently. Average rates were near 11% as recently as a few years ago, but...

Two Florida telemarketing schemes that flooded consumers with misleading pre-recorded robocalls making false promises to reduce their credit-card interest rates have been shut down by the Federal Trade Commission. The agency reached a settlement that permanently bans the two related operations...

An international robocall ring that allegedly fleeced almost 13,000 consumers out of $995 apiece with empty promises to reduce their credit card rates has been shut down by a federal court at the request of the Federal Trade Commission. The case is part of the FTC's continuing crackdown against...