Credit Card Offers Increasingly Complex

Credit card offers, which became increasingly complicated over the last decade, have improved somewhat since the passage of federal Credit Card Act of 2009, according to an October 2010 report by the nonpartisan Center for Responsible Lending (CRL). Analyzing the frequency of numbers appearing in the “summary of terms” boxes on direct mail offers, CRL reports that from 1999 to 2009, the number count increased by 250%. By May 2010, the number count had decreased by 23% from its 2009 peak. In May 2010, 41% of the numbers appearing in summary of terms boxes related to the card’s annual percentage rate, while 27% related to penalty fees, 24% to miscellaneous fees, and 8% to other provisions.