- Hoping to say goodbye to high credit card late fees?
- You may need to keep dreaming.
- A judge could side with credit card companies trying to stop a new cap on fees at the last minute.
Credit card companies aren't giving up their late fees that easily.
In March, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that the federal government had made a new rule capping credit card late fees.
The rule limits fees for a first violation to just $8, a move that the CFPB estimates will save US customers billions.
But the blowback from the credit card industry has been fierce, and they've taken the government to court over it.
This week, a federal judge in Texas is expected to rule on a request to pause the new cap on late fees while a lawsuit is pending, CNBC reported.
If the judge sides with the companies — and the US Chamber of Commerce who joined the lawsuit — the changes to fees wouldn't go into effect.
The cap was set to begin on Tuesday.
Business Insider's Emily Stewart recently warned that it was too early to start celebrating the death of high fees. Despite an election-year push by President Joe Biden to cut down on so-called "junk fees," credit card companies won't go quietly, she wrote.
Even as they fight the rule changes in court, companies will likely just find other ways to make up the money by increasing other fees, Stewart reported.
Matt Schulz, the chief credit analyst at LendingTree, told BI at the time: "I would imagine that we will see other fees increase over the next little while."
One place could be annual fees, which are already rising and could be pushed even higher to sneak them past customers who aren't paying attention to their statements, BI previously reported.
