New federal laws should make it safe for you to get any new credit card you want, right?

Wrong. The CARD Act, passed by Congress in 2009, banned some of the worst credit card fees. But it also will cost credit card companies about $390 million a year in lost fees, David Robertson, publisher of the Nilson Report industry newsletter, told the Wall Street Journal.

Card companies are trying to make that money back, often by finding creative ways to tack new fees onto cards.

“Card companies are figuring out how to replace old fees

with new ones,” Victor Stango, an associate economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, told the Journal in a recent story. “It’s a race between regulators writing ever-more-complex laws and credit-card companies setting up ever-more-complex fees.”

Here are some fees to watch out for, and one card you definitely should avoid.

Watch Out: High Upfront Fees

The CARD Act bars credit card companies from charging fees greater than 25% of a card’s credit limit. But some companies are getting around that limit by ratcheting up their application fees. Miles Beacom, CEO of First Premier Bank, defends the practice in a Wall Street Journal story, since the fees are assessed before the account is technically open.

In October, the Federal Reserve proposed new rules that would explicitly include activation fees under the 25% limit. The rules have not yet been adopted. In the meantime, read the service contract of any new credit card closely, and watch out for high activation fees.

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