Rhode Island § 6-27-10 - Truth in Lending and Retail Selling

§ 6-27-10. Disclosure.

(a) Any application form or written solicitation for a revolving or open-end credit plan provided or offered by a creditor to a resident of this state shall contain or be accompanied by either of the following disclosures:

(1) A disclosure of each of the following, if applicable:

(i) Any periodic interest or finance charge rate that may be applied to the credit card account, expressed as an annual percentage rate, or in the case of a credit card account with a variable rate, the means for determining that rate;

(ii) If two (2) or more periodic rates may be used to compute the finance charge, each rate, the range of balances to which each rate is applicable, and the corresponding annual percentage rate with respect to each periodic rate;

(iii) Any membership, participation, or other similar fee imposed for the issuance of a credit card or, if the creditor does not impose a fee, the disclosure shall so indicate;

(iv) The period within which any credit extended or principal amount withdrawn from a credit card account shall be repaid to avoid incurring a finance charge, and if no period is offered that fact shall be stated, except that a creditor may, at its option and without disclosure, impose no finance charge when payment is received after the time period’s expiration; and

(v) Any per-transaction fee or similar fee; or

(2) A disclosure that satisfies the initial disclosure statement requirements of “Regulation Z”.

(b) Any information required to be disclosed pursuant to this section shall be disclosed in a clear and conspicuous manner.

(c) The provisions of this section shall not apply to oral solicitations or solicitations made through or applications contained in a catalogue, magazine, newspaper, or other print media that is mailed or otherwise distributed to people in more than one state.

(d) A creditor need not present the disclosures required by subsection (a) of this section in chart form or use any specific terminology except as expressly provided in this section. The following chart shall not be construed in any way as a standard by which to determine whether a creditor that elects not to use the chart has provided the required disclosures in a manner that satisfies subsection (a) of this section. However, disclosures shall be conclusively presumed to satisfy the requirements of subsection (a) of this section if a chart with captions substantially as follows is completed with the applicable terms offered by the creditor or if the creditor presents the applicable terms in tabular, list, or narrative format using terminology substantially similar to the captions included in the following chart:

(e) For the purposes of this section, “Regulation Z” means the regulation promulgated and as amended by the Federal Reserve Board pursuant to the Federal Truth in Lending Provisions of the “Consumer Credit Protection Act,” 15 U.S.C. § 1601 et seq.

(f) Nothing in this section shall be deemed or construed to prohibit a creditor from disclosing additional terms, conditions, or information, whether or not relating to the disclosures required under this section, in conjunction with the disclosures required by this section.

(g) This section does not apply to any application form or written solicitation for a revolving or open-end credit plan where the credit to be extended will be secured by a lien on real property.

(h) Any person who knowingly and willfully violates any provision of this section shall be subject to a civil penalty of not less than five hundred dollars ($500) nor more than five thousand dollars ($5,000) per violation. Any application or solicitation violating this section shall be treated as a single violation regardless of the number of applications or solicitations distributed.