Penalties for misusing a Credit Card can be steep, with the average Credit Card Late fee at $35 and the average over-the-limit fee at $32.24, according to a new IndexCreditCards.com tracking report.

“It takes just one false move to get hit,” says Justin McHenry, Research Director for IndexCreditCards.com. “To put these numbers in perspective, the $35 average late fee is roughly equivalent to the monthly finance charge you’d pay if you carried a $2,100 balance at 14% interest — in other words, fairly steep.

“Over-the-limit fees aren’t quite as high, but to many cardholders, they’re even more galling, the logic being that a card should simply be rejected if it hits the limit. Instead, it may or may not be rejected, but the fee will always be applied.”

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