congress and credit cards

Usually I’m not a big fan of posting unrelated political stuff on blogs, but this is a bit of an exception. There is some EXCELLENT legislation in front of the Senate that prevents credit card companies from doing some of the more obnoxious practices they’ve developed over the years.

Please call your Senator and support this bill. If you have a credit card with a balance on it, this bill helps you.

Here’s a couple links to more infomation:

Washington Post

Consumer Union/Consumer Reports

A real story (and an example of what this bill is designed to prevent)…

My friend Melissa is a real estate agent on Maui. Around the middle of last year Chase decided to reduce her credit line on one of the cards she had a balance on. This screwed up her percentage of debt ratio and lowered her credit score somewhat. This allowed Chase to claim that because her credit score was lower, they were going to raise the rates on her outstanding balance from 11% to 25%. She had never missed a payment on that card or any other. She had to pay the card off to avoid being charged 25%… which, with the Fed rate around 1%, I consider 25% to be loan shark rates.

With the banks in so much trouble, this is the type of BS that they are likely to continue doing in an effort to make more money… taxing the very people that bailed them out and kept them from bankruptcy.  The bill in front of congress is designed to stem some of these abuses.

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