Credit Card Gripes - Tell the Feds!

[no1_vern]

Now's your chance to air that gripe about the unexpected interest-rate increase on your credit card.

The Federal Reserve is accepting public comments through Aug. 4 on new credit-card rules it proposed in May. (The deadline for comments regarding some related proposals, mainly regarding credit-card disclosures, is July 18.)

To comment, go online to federalreserve.gov and click on "Consumer Information" at the top of the page. Click on "Proposed Rules for Credit Cards and Overdraft Services," scroll to the bottom of the page, and under "Regulation AA," click on "Submit comment."

Congress has proposed a number of bills where most are for us the consumers:

In February, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D., N.Y.) introduced H.R. 5244, a bill that, among other things, would end "universal default." That's when a credit-card issuer raises a consumer's interest rate based on late payments to other, unrelated creditors. The bill would also prohibit "any time, any reason" changes in credit-card terms, with certain exceptions.

Sen. Chris Dodd (D., Conn.) recently outlined a bill that he intends to introduce with similar provisions to Rep. Maloney's, such as requiring banks to mail statements 21 days before the bill is due, rather than the current 14.

In May 2007, Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.) introduced S. 1395, which proposed a cap on "penalty" interest-rate increases at no more than seven percentage points above the previous rate. And it would prohibit interest on fees, among other provisions.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) introduced S. 2753 in March of this year. Like Sen. Dodd's proposal, the bill limits the ways in which banks can offer credit to people under age 21. Also, it would prevent late-payment fees on any payment postmarked by the due date, among other changes.

Dont let the chance to have your voice be heard about how credit card companies treat YOU!

[pickel]

I know, unfortunately, that there are many who are only surviving by using their credit cards just to survive. However , on the other hand, credit cards are mostly used, IMO, for what I call
" Self Gratification " or "Impulse" buying. I am guilty of this myself. But , self control MUST be used and a running balance should be kept in your head and limits set to keep a balance in proportion to your income minus your expenditures for your monthly living expenses.
You have to realize that these banks that run these CC companies are just blood thirsty bastards who will screw their own mothers and look upon their customers as weak, ignorant chattle with less than normal intelligence to take advantage of at every turn.If at all possible, use them instead of being used by them.

[osprey4]

Do you blame ice cream companies for people being fat?

Frankly, the government should remove all caps on CC interest. Then may the financially fittest survive.

[no1_vern]

Thats not the way it works osprey. When people get into debt, the Government(read US-the taxpayers) bails them out.

As it is WE are paying hundreds of millions to bail out the banks for just the "mortgage crisis", How much more will we have to pay to bail tens of millions of people out of THEIR CC debt ??

[MTAtech]

...on the other hand, credit cards are mostly used, IMO, for what I call " Self Gratification " or "Impulse" buying.

I use CC for almost every purchase -- from my wireless bill to my auto insurance. Why not? I get between 1% and 5% for using the CC. My AMEX card rebates 5% on gasoline; that's 20 cents per gallon at $4 gas.

I also pay my cards in full at the end of the month.

Frankly, the government should remove all caps on CC interest. Then may the financially fittest survive.

Then loan sharking shouldn't be a crime.

The two areas I find most egregious are:

1) short payment time: They give about three weeks from the closing date to pay the bill. However, it takes a week to get a bill and therefore to know how much you owe. If you happened to go on vacation the day before, you may miss the payment date due to no fault of yours.

2) Universal Default: If one keeps paying their card, why should they care if you missed a payment to your cell-phone carrier?

I have an on-line arrangement with Chase to automatically pay the entire balance on the due date.

[osprey4]

Loan sharking should not, in fact, be a crime. In fact, it was the "help the poor" mentality that brought us the current sub-prime crisis and has pushed interest rates up.

Same with "price gouging".

To paraphrase the old expression, in the land of the blind, the man with one eye should in fact be king.

[MTAtech]

Loan sharking should not, in fact, be a crime. In fact, it was the "help the poor" mentality that brought us the current sub-prime crisis and has pushed interest rates up.

The sub-prime crisis was caused by too little regulation not too much regulation.

After the Great Depression, laws were passed to insure banks. As a trade, banks had to accept regulations on the risks that they exposed themself too. The subprime crisis was caused by "financial innovation" which moved financial products out of the regulated domain into an unregulated one.

The problem was ideological. Policy makers, such as Alan Greenspan, who believe that the markets are always right, ignored warning signs.