Sweeping credit card reforms that kicked in Feb. 22 promised to snuff out the card industry's most abusive practices, but experts say it's no time for consumers to let their guard down.

The Credit Card Responsibility and Disclosure Act will cut deeply into card issuers' revenues, so the industry has been busy trying to adapt by devising new fees and practices designed to refill the till.

"I don't want to push a panic button," Cardratings.com founder Curtis Arnold said last month. "But there will be new fees" for consumers to contend with, he said. "There will be stuff we haven't seen before."

In December, holders of Macy's and Bloomingdale's credit cards started seeing something new on their monthly statements: finance charges even though they weren't carrying a balance.

Citibank, which issues those department store cards, had adopted a practice known as "bill and rebate." That meant collecting interest charges upfront each month. For cardholders who paid their full balance on time, the finance charges were "refunded" on the next statement.

Steve Brobeck, executive director of the Consumer Federation of America, called the practice "completely inappropriate."

"Essentially, they are insisting you give them a free loan," he said.

Fortunately for Macy's and Bloomie's cardholders, the policy didn't last long.

The Federal Reserve suspected the practice was designed to get around certain regulations in the credit card act. So, when the Fed published the final reforms in January, the agency added language that prohibited bill and rebate.

"This method of interest calculation, commonly known as bill and rebate, was eliminated as of Feb. 22 as a result of the new credit card regulations," Citibank spokesman Sam Wang said in an e-mail last week. "We implemented the bill and rebate approach based on an earlier release of the regulatory revisions that suggested that approach was acceptable."

Mr. Wang said Citi adopted the practice because "regulations required us to stop using the previously used method of interest calculation." He declined to elaborate.

"We need to be on our toes as consumers because [card issuers] are going to try to slip stuff by like this," Mr. Arnold said.

Citi may have been testing the waters for a time when all cardholders pay interest charges, even if they pay off their balance each month.

"The law does not require a card issuer to give a grace period on purchases," Mr. Wang noted in his e-mail.

Among other new tactics and fees experts say are popping up:

• Annual fees. This type of fee, which had been all but dead, is making a comeback. In April, Citibank will begin charging a $60 annual fee on accounts that rack up less than $2,400 in charges a year. The move affects Citibank-branded cards only, not the retail cards that Citi handles.

Mr. Wang called the action "necessary given the increasing cost of doing business." He noted that customers could opt out of the fee by closing their account and paying off any existing balance under the old rates and terms.

• Inactivity fees. Card issuers are starting to assess a fee when an account holder doesn't use a card for 12 months. The Fed is considering outlawing inactivity fees and fees for closing an account in August, when a few remaining provisions of the card act are set to take effect.

• Reward reinstatement fee. Some card issuers now cancel accumulated reward points if a customer is late making a minimum payment. Cardholders can pay a reinstatement fee to get the points back.

"They essentially hold your reward points hostage," Mr. Arnold said.

• Scaling back rewards. American Express cut the cash back points on some cards from 1.5 percent to 1.25 percent, for example, and the Discover Open Road card changed the 5 percent cash back on gas and car maintenance to 2 percent back on gas and restaurants (although it raised the cash back limit from $100 to $250 per month).

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