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Digital News Report – The Federal Reserve Board announced their approval of the final rule for the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) act pertaining to the uses of gift cards, gift certificates, and general-use prepaid credit cards. The new rules are to go into effect on August 22, 2010 except for cards produced before April 1, 2010 which goes into effect on January 31, 2011, so long as they have met specific provisions.
The new rule for these prepaid credit cards, gift cards, gift certificates, or store issued gift cards are that they can’t expire in less than five years from the last time funds were loaded on them and there are new limits to certain fees. An inactivity fee for example, would not be able to be charged until it has been unused for over one years time. These cards need to disclose the fees, expiration date and toll-free contact number on the card itself.
These new gift card and prepaid credit card rules will help consumers to save money because of excessive fees and loss of funds do to expiration dates that were many times too short in duration.
By: Victoria Brown