Credit cards can protect you against fraudulent charges, and some can bag you cash-back rewards. But perhaps the best thing about paying with a credit card is that in the event of a dispute with a merchant, it provides the ultimate ace up your sleeve: the chargeback.
More than 13 million Bank of America debit-card customers could see some repayment for excessive overdraft fees the bank charged them over the course of a decade. A federal judge has approved a $410 million settlement to compensate customers who were charged fees as a result of the bank posting transactions from highest to lowest dollar amount, rather than in the order they occurred.
New rules proposed by the Fed for debit card transactions may mean consumers end up paying more to use their cards, while big retailers save billions. The rules would sharply limit the transaction fees sellers pay, so banks could recoup that money from buyers.
The smartphone revolution is about to upend another business: credit card processing. With Google's new Android pay-by-phone app and Square's new transaction hardware for iPhones, your plastic could become obsolete.
