Credit card companies are quietly rolling out a fee for paper statements: ‘Closing my account’

Customers of credit cards from many major retailers must pay $1.99 if they still want to receive a paper statement.

Synchrony Bank, which provides dozens of co-branded cards to companies from Amazon to Walgreens, implemented the fee in recent months.

The fees also apply to cards issued by the bank for American Eagle, Dick’s, J Crew, JCPenney, Lowe’s, PayPal, Sam’s Club, Venmo and Verizon.

While there are no laws banning paper statement fees, businesses must obtain customer consent before switching to digital billing.

For many Americans, digital statements are not welcome; some seniors may be uncomfortable with technology, while others prefer printed statements to manage their finances.

Business professor Elaine Luther of Point Park University warned Boston 25 that online statements and payments can expose users to potential data breaches.

She also pointed out that low-income consumers may have difficulty with digital payment systems.

For example, Alicia Galowitsch and her husband Mark have a fixed income and carefully track their budget.

“It’s very tight where we had to go to a food bank,” Ms. Galowitsch told NBC Los Angeles.

The couple, who live in Palmdale, have six credit cards with Synchrony Bank and were recently told they would have to pay $1.99 on each credit card.

“That works out to $11.94,” Ms. Galowitsch explained.

She emphasizes the importance of paper statements to keep their finances in order, especially when she is away from home. ‘

“If I’m not there, the payments will be late because Mark doesn’t know what to do. With paper statements, everything is written down for him,” she noted.

Frustrated, Galowitsch contacted Synchrony to request a fee waiver, especially since she pays the bank about $450 a month in interest.

“You earn enough in interest, why would you charge anything else?” she asked.

However, the bank remained steadfast. “All they said was that’s what they decided to do. No ifs, ands, or buts,” she said.

Synchrony Bank indefinitely waived paper statement fees for the Galowitschs after NBC contacted the company.

The bank said it had introduced exclusions to accommodate people with various special situations.

Chi Chi Wu, an attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, argues that charging consumers for paper statements is unfair

“That’s honestly one of the worst consequences of online-only statements,” she told NBC.

“People just overlook the email that says you have a statement. (They) don’t open it, don’t go to the website, or maybe they forgot their password and missed a payment. Now you have to pay a late fee,” she said.

Reddit threads have also grown as customers discuss the $1.99 fee.

‘Close my account’ wrote one user on a thread titled: Sync to start charging for paper statements,

‘They also increased the rate to almost 32%. Not that I have a balance sheet, but the greed of this company is astonishing.

Meanwhile, a recent report showed how the value of credit card reward points has gradually declined as inflation has taken hold.

The exchange rate for points changes when you transfer them from the bank’s portal to a frequent flyer or other points program

Inflation begins to erode the value of points as users redeem them directly through a bank’s portal or online app

A point redeemed through online banking has long been worth about one cent.

But according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, one penny has lost about 20 percent of its purchasing power since 2018.

This means that a point has also decreased in value by approximately the same amount, according to The Wall Street Journal.

If you collected 50,000 points from a major credit card company in 2020 and still haven’t spent them, they’re now worth about 41,300, according to the outlet.