Beware credit card fee-creep

It's no secret that banks and credit card issuers are looking for ways to make up the money they'll lose when both the new Federal Reserve rules on overdraft charges and the Credit CARD Act kick in. One way they're doing this is by tacking on a host of new fees.

Both MSNBC and Consumerist.com pointed out that more companies will charge you if prefer to receive a paper statement in the mail.

But while many people prefer electronic statements for convenience or for environmental reasons, Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director at advocacy group US-PIRG, told WalletPop in an interview that it can be risky to trust a financial institution to store your data. "In my opinion, you are better protected when you have a paper copy of your records than [having them housed] by a web site that can change," he says. Paperless billing is a way to pass that cost of printing along to the customer, he added.