Pillage Talk
Dec 4th, 2007 at 4:33 pm by Susie
The politicians pass legislation that basically allows credit card companies to do whatever they want, and now they are “shocked” by the outcome:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As consumers whip out their credit cards for another holiday shopping binge, a U.S. Senate panel on Tuesday will examine surprise interest rate increases, even for cardholders who scrupulously make payments on time.
“Working people are being squeezed. That’s something which is intolerable and we’re going to try to shed some light on it,” Michigan Democratic Sen. Carl Levin told reporters on Monday.
The chairman of the Senate’s wide-ranging Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said his panel has found some card companies charging rates as high as 30 percent, even for consumers “faithfully paying” their credit card bills.
Charges are sometimes applied retroactively to existing balances and often card holders have trouble getting a straight answer about why their rates have been raised, Levin said at a briefing ahead of a subcommittee hearing set for Tuesday.
Recently got an update on one of my Visa cards informing me if I default in anyway on my account they will raise my interest rate to 34.86 percent.
They are loan sharks. I’m surprised they aren’t hiring thugs to go out and break peoples legs, if they are late on a payment. I hope Levin can do something, we will see.
I agree - something needs to be done. I’ve done some work with unfaircreditcardfees.com and its crazy how much the credit card companies keep hidden from us. Rates that can change, fees like interchange that are not even reported are all evidence of a broken system that desperately needs more accountability.