Excellent. I'm sure if you give up your first born, you can get a variable rate PLUS only 19%, rather than the 34% they promise to enact.

Excellent. Where do I sign up?

Why is this a bad thing? IF, and only, IF, someone prefers to have the ability to go over their limit, and pay a $29 fee, they can do so. It's opt-in, so I don't see where the problem is here.

@NeverLetMeDown: the problem is they are asking you to waive a right given to you by law that would protect you from further predatory acts by the card company such as raising your rates without notice, additional fees with no notice and delays of your payment, which earn them more fees.

@Chumas: I agree that its bad (for me), but if the OP wants the ability to go over his limit and just pay the fees, he should have the ability to do so. At a certain point, it's his choice.

However, I think that the CC companies must make it very clear what this means (i.e. that they can raise it any time they want, etc.).

Five bucks says that in the small print in the op out rules it says that opting out of that one protection means you opt out of them all.

Is it even legal to opt out??

Since this seems to be such a confusing topic for the public at large, I suggest this opt in/opt out decision would be a great topic for a Consumer Reports article. (hint hint)

This can't just be to opt in on going over your limit. They must be asking people to opt out entirely and just using going over your limit as their one example. I wonder how many people are going to fall for this trick.

@Rectilinear Propagation: That's what I'm concerned about. This will end up like the arbitration issue: either you agree to it or we close your account. It will become an industry norm and it will be like the CARD act never existed.

It is bad to even be close to your limit. That is one big reason they use to raise your rates. If you are even close to it, it should be a very short term situation, so it shouldn't even be a consideration.

It is kind of a fake fee too, it doesn't costs them anything for someone to go over their self imposed limit. Many limits are artificially low because they have been reducing them and in some cases balance chasing. Really what they are saying is we can't by law screw you anymore, but if you let us we can! And we will make it $10 less!

[credit.about.com]

"No over-the-limit fees unless you request (opt-in) the credit card issuer to process over-the-limit transactions. Otherwise, over-the-limit transactions would be denied and you would not incur a fee."

So in short it looks like he's just opting in to have
over the limit transactions approved.

@amberlink: Can I give someone else's first born?

@nightshade74: So the $39 fee lowering isn't really correct. The OP would have a $0 fee since the account would never go over. Sneaky.

@opticnrv: I agree. If these things start rolling out en masse, it would be helpful to get some of the language so we could see what we may have to look out for. Credit card companies deliberately mask their language in all sorts of ridiculously vague terminology, and sometimes it makes it difficult to figure out what they're actually saying.

This smells fishy to me, and I'm wondering whether or not Capital One can legally allow their customers to "opt out" of a Federal Law.

Here in NY City, we have very strict regulations regarding residential properties and leases. Any rider or additional clause added by the property owner which seeks to circumvent one of those regulations will be deemed to null and void, even if the tenant signs the lease.

I would be very interested to have The Consumerist contact the proper government agency to see if Capital One is not violating the law by engaging in this slippery activity

@Straspey: In this instance it is PART of the law for you to opt out of the over limit fee only. It IS so that people can have the choice to not get stuck somewhere.

those card companies have their pimp hand strong.......

Anyone else see the irony of this offer?

The credit industry assesses people's ability pay back extended credit. By allowing someone to go over their credit limit (of course it is for ~emergencies~), this is failure of the corporation to assess the credit repayment risk. This is a micro version of offering mortgages to people who could not afford to pay the mortgages back. Here the government is specifically trying to protect the consumer by forcing the company to stop offering credit above the originally offered amount which would, by default, protect the corporation from non-repayment, and yet corporation wants just more!!! While I am sure that some actuary in the company identified the demographic /economics of the people to whom to extend the "bust your credit line" offer, it still stands that the corporation is trying to get yet more!, more!!, more!!! without regard to overall risk to the industry since the focus is probably just some executive vice president going after a bonus...

Is this company in the same industry that cried rivers when people couldn't afford to pay back their debts? The same industry that had to get the entire bankruptcy law changed because people couldn't pay back their debts and the industry was "losing too much money on deadbeats"?

So why would this industy encourage people to get back in debt beyond their assessed risk? Oh, yeah, $29.00 per month in pure profit.

Wait, due to changes in the card act, you will no longer be able to go over your limit? But when you go over your limit which they aren't allowed to let you do, they still charge you $39 dollars? But if you waive your rights, they'll drop the overlimit fee by $10? (head asplodes)

Seriously, wtf is so hard about denying a charge if it's past the limit, that they should charge $40 for the privlege?

Also, I thought it wasn't possible to sign away your rights, and any contract in which you do so is lillegal and invalid?

Act NOW and we'll only screw you 75% as much!
Meh... Doesn't seem too winning of an ad slogan to me.

Gee, didn't the Wall Street Journal — which of course is never wrong about these things — recently declare the recession over? How then can the bankruptcies and bank-failures be continuing? I for one don't believe this. I suspect these stories are fabrications by the Evil Media Elite to make people think the recession is still underway, when we all ought to know that it's not. After all, the "recession" was never real ... it was merely mental, the result of the Media Elite having made the US into a nation of whiners.

It's all a Commie plot, I tell you! There was and is no recession; no banks have failed; and CIT is doing just fine thank you.

</end sarcasm mode>

@DangerMouth..Passed the Audition!: Lets say you are opted in and try to go over your limit=declined and no fee.

Opted out? Approval and fee.

@PsiCop: Woops, posted to the wrong article. Should have gone here. A thousand pardons please!

@ARP: It's the squirrelly language that kills it for me. If the rep listed all the protections the act gives consumers, bullet-point style, then offered their "deal", it'd be reasonable. Instead their offer downplays the benefits they'd be giving up.

can i opt in to murder, that would be wicked cool. im willing to pay a $29 fee for each murder.

@JohnDeere: with lawyers, we pay you!

@Chumas: What right are they asking him to waive? Sounds to me like they asked him if he wanted to opt in to an ability to go over his limit, a right offered to him by the CARD act.

@wcnghj: Ah, so cc comapanies won't be able to charge you a fee for merely attempting that which they should never have allowed you to do? What about banks? What about cc's issued by banks? What about debit cards?

I need to find these regs in plain english somewhere... Time to google

@opticnrv: How you can "opt in" and sign away your rights under CARD is a very confusing topic to me.

@Rectilinear Propagation: I don't think so. As far as I know, they don't have the ability to have you opt out of all of the protections offered by the act, otherwise the whole thing would be moot when applications add language to the effect of "By applying for this credit card, you agree to opt out of all protections afforded by the CARD act."

They can't pick and choose which parts of the act they want to implement, or ask customers to opt out of some parts of the act. Over-the-limit transactions (and associated fees) are specifically allowed if and only if the customer opts in:

Requires Opt-In to Over-Limit Fees: Consumers will find it easier to avoid over-limit fees because institutions will have to obtain a consumer's permission to process transactions that would place the account over the limit. [www.whitehouse.gov]

Sounds to me thats what permission they tried to obtain here.

@frank64:

Thanks for clarifying that point frank. I was unaware of that provision in the law, and it's good to know because it will make me a better-informed consumer ;)

@NeverLetMeDown: This might be a bad thing if in the actual language there is text that tries to sneak in "and additional protections are also waived" on page 95 of the "new" agreement you sign in 6 point type.

@JohnDeere: Depending on your political leanings, yes, there are forms of opt-in murder out there and some would like additional forms of opt-in murder. I'll leave it as an (easy) exercise to the reader to decide what I'm talking, since bringing these issues up is going waaay off the ranch in this forum.

@Michael Belisle: "I wont bring up these issues i just brought up, because I dont have the balls to take heat for bringing up these completely unrelated issues." Well played.

@wcnghj: See above comment, which suggests that in the case of over-limit fees, the consumer is able to explicitly opt in. It's that opt-in that Capital One attempted to solicit.

@Michael Belisle: i dont want to murder bad enough to get a job at an insurance company. jeez im not that evil.

@amberlink: Uh oh, better watch out, you're on to them now.

"Waive your rights" is a slight mischaracterization of what they're offering here. The CARD act requires them to offer a fixed credit limit that cannot be exceeded as an option. Choosing the other option (a limit that can be exceeded) does not entail waiving any rights.

I think your choice of words unfairly demonizes Capital One for giving people the opportunity to make stupid decisions. There are a lot of reasons to demonize Capital One, but they're not doing anything wrong or outside the intent of the CARD act.

@Cant_stop_the_rock:

I hadn't read the comments prior to posting mine, but now that I have I think it's worth noting that your misleading choice of words has apparently confused a few people.

@MostlyHarmless: Actually, I'm just trying to discourage anyone who might be tempted to bring up certain issues of which we do not speak around these parts. In other forums, like over at the world's largest collection of arguments, I'd be more than willing to grapple mano-a-mano on tough issues.

Rule: Every time you get a solicitation from any consumer business to do anything, reject their offer. I have never gotten a solicitation that was worth my time/money. The reason is clear, the only time a consumer business ever spends money soliciting you is when they will make a ton of money off of you. Bottom line.

I would have to see this in writing before I even start to discuss this with my card issuers. If Discover did that to me without letting me opt in or out, I'll drop them like a hot iron, and move on. My Cirrus issued bank credit card does just well, no frills, credit limit cash withdrawals, reasonable rates, and a cinch to keep paid off.

@NeverLetMeDown: Anyone has a list of other federal laws I can "opt out" of? I know this doesn't seem like a stretch after 8 years of Bush, but seriously, not even the president is supposed to be able to "opt out" of following a federal law, regardless of how Nixon felt about it.

Calling credit card companies weasels gives self-respecting weasels a bad name. Can we just round all of these companies up now, put them against the wall and shoot them? Please?

@DangerMouth..Passed the Audition!: Ah, yes. The old "not only will we let you do something new, we let you do it cheaper" ploy, I know it well.

I'm with you here. Clearly there's something fishy with CaptialOne, if they've got some kind of fee schedule for illegally doing something, and a different fee schedule for legally doing it.

@Persistence: it all depends on what your definition of "is" is..

I got this call from Capital One.

They asked me if when I charge something and I go over my limit... do I want them to deny it, or leave my account the way it is.. and process the transaction. She didn't say anything about the fees or try to sway my decision.

She didn't mention anything about waiving any other rights or anything like that. Just the over-the-limit one. It seemed to me more like an option than opt-out.

I chose to have my account stay the same. That was the only thing I authorized, to have that portion of my account "stay the same."

Just thought I'd post my experience, this was about 2 weeks ago.

@joepa1: Haha. Good one. Channeling Bill Clinton there. I'd like to opt-out of homocide laws since I want to go to CitiBank and give them a piece of my mind.

Can this be buried in fine print for other things or does this have to be explicitly agreed to by itself?

I see other enabled features for card fine print have I wave all possible protections from the CARD act buried in the legalese.