Credit Card Practices Bill Introduced in House of Representatives

Thanks to Ed Mierzwinski over at U.S. PIRG's Consumer Blog for this excellent post on the introduction last Thursday of the Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights Act, H.R. 5244. The bill addresses a number of credit card company practices, including imposition of certain interest rate and fee hikes and charging interest on already-paid-off balances. Ed's post has a number of useful links about the bill. The text of the legislation is here.

Comments

[Randy]

Bank of America is raising interest rates substantially on credit cards from variable rates which are around 11 % now to fixed rates as high as 29.99 % based on questionable business practices in my opinion. My card was raised to 29.99 % from the low variable. Calling Bofa one gets various reasons why the rate went up depending on the person who answers. It is a negative report they say from Equifax. I got that removed - it was not correct. I called Bofa back told them the report was incorrect-then I was told no the issue is your earnings to debt ratio. Others have been told various things-late payments when there were none,to many min. payments etc. I was never late - early was the norm for me. Or there is the ultimate reason given and that is something along the lines that some other bill from another company was paid late so Bofa can raise rates when and as high as the law allows. How stupid do Bofa think we are out here. This is simply greed and not business as usual as the Bofa spokeswoman stated in the Charlotte Observer dated 2/13/08. I think this in another business is called extortion or loan sharking or usery etc. And yet the government and congress does nothing about these practices-shameful. Now let's see if I can follow this logic-I can't of course. An idividual is allowed to charge say up to $12,000 or so at a variable rate say 13 % or the like-teaser rates. So, they do so, to live or to pay for some unforeseen crisis and calculate they can make the credit card payment. Then the credit card company say Bofa or others say oh your debt to earnings ratio is to high so our solution is to increase your payment so that you possibly will be forced into bankrupcy or have to refinance your home or get a second job. What kind of country do we have now? For God's sake this should be illegal. Please write or call your rep. and ask to support the Credit Card Holders Bill of Rights(H.R. 5244) sponsored by U.S. Rep. Caroly Maloney,D-N.Y.

[Taylor Norrish]

Hey Randy,

A super easy and effective way to contact your reps is to go to govit.com and vote. Your vote can be sent instantly to your reps.

http://govit.com/H_R_5244/To_amend_the_Truth_in_Lending_Act_to_establish_fair_and_tran/

[Andy]

Hi,

I'd like to add another vicious practice by the credit card companies. In my case, Chase Credit Card.

The card company called and said they'd advance me a loan (which I didn't need at all) with free interest for 6 months. I accepted it (this was a second time I did and paid back in full in the 6th month) and immediately setup an automatic monthly payment as was required by the terms.

The catch was this; the card company changed my payment date by a few days. I had already setup monthly payments on a certain day (which was two days before the payment date) based on their first statement, I didn't check the subsequent statements where the date change was made. Chase promptly charged interest on all the balance and a late payment fee every month for the next 3 months. When I called to find out the full payment date without interest I was told I was already paying interest because of late monthly payments. I was livid with anger and demanded repayment of interest and late fee which the card refused and I lost about $500 in the bargain - a loan that I didn't need!

Of course I canceled all the Chase card and won't ever be a Chase card member. But this is a despicable practice and they should be penalized for such practices. When I requested cancellation of cards, I was asked the reason and I told them of the problem and they said they'll only waive about $77 which was the balance of the late charges and interest.

Thank you for giving me an opportunity to share and expose such practices which I hope this legislation would remedy.

Sincerely,
Andy

[Bob from Debt Help Review]

Yeah, Andy, I can relate. I've been a victim of not checking my statements' "payment due by" listings too, and have had to pay late fees because of it. They hope that you'll get in a habit of paying at the same time each month, and then switch up the payment date by a few days, and hope you don't notice.

[Bob from Debt Help Review]

Yeah, Andy, I can relate. I've been a victim of not checking my statements' "payment due by" listings too, and have had to pay late fees because of it. They hope that you'll get in a habit of paying at the same time each month, and then switch up the payment date by a few days, and hope you don't notice.

[Bob from Debt Help Review]

Yeah, Andy, I can relate. I've been a victim of not checking my statements' "payment due by" listings too, and have had to pay late fees because of it. They hope that you'll get in a habit of paying at the same time each month, and then switch up the payment date by a few days, and hope you don't notice.

[Bob from Debt Help Review]

Note - I'm very sorry about the multiple duplicate posts above. For some reason, I was having a problem back-clicking to the main page, and each back-click made a duplicate post.