January 21st, 2010 by Reed Allmand 
Don’t do online banking? You could be charged $1 to receive your credit card statement via mail. Over 90 retailers who issue store credit cards Dallas-based Alliance Data Systems have decided to charge customers $1 per statement if they receive their credit card bill via mail. Retailers such as Ann Taylor, Victoria’s Secret and Bealls department store are amongst those retailers implementing the $1 fee to offset the costs of the Credit Card Act. Many consumers advocates are against the fee and say it penalizes those who won’t or can’t do their banking online, especially the elderly. Others say that the $1 fee is just another way to make up for lost profits caused by the Credit Card Act.
“When we did a very careful assessment of what the CARD Act meant in terms of changing our monthly billing statement, it now has to include much more detail relating to the terms and conditions of the card. That effectively meant that we couldn’t accomplish what we needed to accomplish on the number of pages that we had been mailing out in our monthly statement. We had to increase the amount of paper, production and ink, as well as the whole technical aspect of reconfiguring, reprogramming and recalibrating how we issue monthly bills.”
It doesn’t seem that these retailers have any trouble advertising their products and other such things in credit card statements. How many additional pages do they need for their promotions? So why is that when it is time to comply with sensible legislation that consumers should pick up the tab? This new fee is punishing people who don’t bank online. And unfortunately those who will be impacted the most by these new credit card fees will be the elderly who are often not internet savvy or who cannot afford to or do not desire to pay for internet service. Our legislators need to make sure that in the wake of the Credit Card Act, American credit card consumers are not burdened with a mountain of ridiculous fees.
About Reed Allmand
Allmand's vision is rooted in his own financially precarious childhood in Abilene "My father always had difficulty holding a job and supporting our family, so after my parents divorced when I was 12, my sister and I got jobs to help make ends meet," he recalls. "I remember what it felt like as a child to worry that our car would be repossessed or home foreclosed on."
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