Judge tosses Biden-era credit card late fee rule

Fox News ^ | 4/16/25 | Daniella Genovese

[CFW]

A federal judge threw out a U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) rule Tuesday that capped all credit card late fees at $8.

U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas approved a joint motion from a coalition of six business and banking groups, including the American Bankers Association (ABA) and the CFPB to scrap the rule, which was established last year.

The ABA and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce were among the plaintiffs that challenged the rule in U.S. District Court for Northern Texas, arguing the bureau exceeded its statutory authority.

The rule was initially established in March 2024 by the Biden administration. At the time, the CFPB estimated the rule would save families more than $10 billion in late fees annually by reducing the typical late fee that averages $32 to a maximum of $8. That amounts to an average savings of roughly $220 per year for the 45 million people charged late fees.

[Svartalfiar]

The problem is if the fees are too low, more and more people will deprioritize making their payments. It is a tough issue.

There's easy ways to deal with that that don't screw people over unless they want to be screwed over.

Increasing fees - first time $1 late fee, second $2, $3, etc.

Increasing fee over time - a week late is $2, two weeks $4, three weeks $8, etc etc.

Increasing consistency - each late payment increases the next fee's amount, but each on time payment lowers the fee amount (similar to many banks' one-time-forgiveness type of policies)

And I'm sure there's other ways for a billion-dollar company to work with minimum wage earners to pay their bills on time without charging them a day's-plus worth of food every time they're a bit late on paying..

[mewzilla]

You’re quite right.

And we have laws to deal with that.

I’d still leave it to the free market to sort out.

[packrat35]

Collusion is not a free market. Sometimes you have to set limits and enforce them. Right now, they do what they want without restraint.

When caught doing something really bad, like Wells Fargo opening up tens of thousands in fake accounts, their only punishment is a fine. You and I do something like no where near as bad and we go to JAIL!

[Fledermaus]

I only use my credit card to get unlimited cash back.

Pay it weekly.

Haven’t been charged interest in years.

[Fledermaus]

Every purchase I make at the local convenience store earns me .05 to .10 off a gallon. By the time I fill up (monthly mostly) I have close to 1 dollar off.

They count all purchases including beer and cigs.

Kroger only gives .10 per $100 spent upto $1.00. They disallow beer and cigs among other purchases.

[Fledermaus]

The dish isn’t a big deal. When I canceled them they just wanted some card in the box sent back.

[HKMk23]

Reminded me of the comic line about the old Discover card: “I discovered I can’t pay.”