A Day of Reckoning for Credit Card Companies
By Susie Madrak Monday Dec 15, 2008 7:00pmA good friend who always checks every single item in every bill has told me she finds more companies playing games with the bills lately. She even got charged a late fee because they changed the posting time (not date) on her bill. She fought it and won.
If this goes as expected, those practices will be outlawed this week:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. credit card industry, harshly criticized for imposing surprise fees and interest rate hikes on consumers, may face a day of reckoning on Thursday.
The Federal Reserve is to vote on credit card reforms that may bring some relief to customers who face a variety of ways for being hit with late fees, universal defaults, shorter payment periods and confusing payment allocations for different balances.
Credit card users likely also would see easier-to-read tables in their monthly statements as a result of the changes.
The new rules, which were proposed earlier this year, are expected to total some 1,000 pages. They need approval of the Federal Reserve, the Office of Thrift Supervision and the National Credit Union Administration, which all are expected to act on Thursday.
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sort of like shutting the barn door after the horse bolts, isn't it?
shutting the barn door after the horse has run down the street, taken a bus to the airport, got on a plane, and is now sunning himself on the beach in St. Tropaz.
don't do enough credit checks. If you know your going bankrupt anyway, why not sign up with as many credit offers as possible, max out every card and then declare personal bankruptcy. If you're going to go bankrupt anyway, why not go while on a beach in Barbados...
.... are the reason for high interest rates. Someone else will pay for your callousness.
to be the recognition of clear behavioural incentives and the adoption of corresponding actions.
that universal clause is brutal. this credit card companies have too much power. they love it when your late.
And they love their 17 day monthly cycles.
I can't hardly stand solicitations for credit cards made directly to me. It's much smarter to stick with debit or a check card, and yes, cash too.
back to them with a note that says, "Fuck You". Works for me.
that sort of junk mail sure is a waste of paper and trees!
Along with all the weekly flyers and other garbage which comes right out of my mailbox and straight into the garbage can right next to it.
Unfortunately, I have to bring in the multitude of credit card spam I get so I can shred it. What a colossal pain in the ass.
I wonder if the credit card companies are teaming up with the companies that make shredders (most likely in China) so that they can inflate their profits and bottom line.
I also tend to think that the Nixon admin. came out or influenced the first modern day heavy-duty shredders, which Cheney has been miring for the past 8 years.
... stuff every bit of waste paper you can find into the envelope to stick them with a bigger postage bill.
*
...because we can trust bankers to regulate bankers. They've done a heckuva job so far.
For a lot of us, the damage's already done.
Doing this stuff retroactively might help.
We CAN'T HAVE THAT. Perhaps the U.S. Senate will intervene and help out those poor put upon usurers. I mean that's what those million dollar shits do.
Is what we need. For one full month, no repayment to the credit card companies, not to Citi, Amex, Sears, JC Pennys, you name it.
If that doesn't get their attention, do it again. Don't trust Congress to press them into action. They're all in the same bed, else how could they have gotten the relaxation of the regulations in the first place?
(I can write this because I don't owe any of them a single dime.) That, too, is also a great strategy.
One of the best ways to fight back against credit card companies is to pay off your balances at the end of the month while reaping the benefits of their reward points. Easier said than done because Americans are working harder and bringing home less. However, staying out of debt as much as possible is the best way consumers can fight back.
Set goals to pay off your cards one by one. I cannot tell you how rewarding it is to not have numerous cards hanging over your head every month. I only have 2 now - one for emergencies and the other I use regularly but pay off monthly.
'Deadbeats.' That's right. You're a deadbeat. Because you use their card and pay them nothing to do so. Never mind they're grabbing 4-5% of your purchases, plus merchant fees for the sellers.
It's a usurious racket
There was a person who refused to use and had her card canceled by the issuer. Really, it happened! Not using your card is not in the company's interest. They issue you the card to make money, not for your emergencies. I don't mean to sound harsh, it's just reality.
HBSC Platinum Visa. I would use it once every 3-5 months, and pay it off. For a while, they kept hiking the max, and bumped it to gold then platinum. Then, one day, I went to use it, and it was declined. I went online, and the limit was set to $1. I called, and was told the card was closed due to inactivity.
Two weeks after that, I received the letter saying it was closed six weeks previous. (Nice of them to get around to telling me.)
What gets me is, I get mail for their gold cards every two weeks *minimum*!
So, yes, they can close an inactive account. It's supposed to be more common for gold and platinum cards. Some issuers have minimum annual spending on such cards. Also, some issuers will mark an inactive card with "call home" so the retailer has to call in the card when it's used. That also happened to me once. (Same card, before it was gold, after about 6 months disuse.) If you have an emergency card, you should use it a minimum of every six months, preferably every 2-3 months. Use it once, pay it off a few days later online.
Credit card companies have a name for people who pay off their balance in full every month -- "deadbeats". No kidding.
It's true. It's the official name given PIF customers by the credit racketeers. PIF=Pay in Full
This is nice to hear. These credit card companies are ruining people's lives. It has to be stopped! Yet I can't quite believe it. All too often these companies are never really stopped. In the end, the free-market always seems to get away with abusing the consumer. Very sad. Let's hope my skeptical side turns out to be wrong on this!
http://mattwion.blogspot.com/
Why Jeb Hensarling (R)Texas was not signing off on the recent Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) report.
Snip -I was, however, particularly concerned about language that could be interpreted as a panel expectation that Treasury should make credit more expensive and less available for Americans and could delay the recovery of our housing market at exactly the wrong time in our nation’s economic history. http://www.house.gov/list/press/tx05_hensarli...
The Fox guarding the hen house? Any opinions?
with Vice President Joe "MBNA" Biden
How is Vice President elect Joe Biden, related to this article? You do know that MBNA was acquired by Bank of America in 2005, right?
I cut all mine up. Gold cards. Platinum cards. Visas and Mastercard and American Express with credit limits off the charts. Dozens of them. Most paid off. Some it's going to be a cold day in hell before I pay those fuckers another penny, come get me you greedy, conniving, lying assholes.
I will never have another credit card again. I have a simple hole-in-the-wall card for my bank account and the only debit card that works in NZ like a credit card for internet purchases (but it's paid off immediately, no overdraft, no interest, no loans, no fucking about.)
If I can't afford it, I don't buy it. It makes my life a bit less... well... easy. But that's actually a plus now. I had to give up a hell of a lot, but it's so much more clear now what's important and what isn't. And how much STUFF you just don't need to clutter up your life.
Of course, I haven't had a catastrophic illness, or a job loss with four kids to support and a wife working two shifts at the local Wal-Mart desperately staving off foreclosure on the mortgage, all while certain Presidential candidates took huge contributions from credit card companies and were instrumental in passing legislation to make it harder for such people to file bankruptcy and default on their cards. To them, and to the credit card companies, I hope the reckoning coming bites them in the arse. I don't care what party they're supposedly from.
Not bitter. Not at all. Just a bit poorer but wiser.
As delinquencies and charge-offs -- balances written off as uncollectible -- on credit cards rise, investors demand higher yield spreads for credit card-backed securities.
The ABA represents the biggest issuers of Visa and MasterCard. Citigroup, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase enjoyed almost 70 percent of the credit card market at the end of 2007, according to the Card Industry Directory.
The buddy banks, making things happen... :-/
Snip - Congressman Louis T. McFadden, Chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Currency from 1920–31, accused the Federal Reserve of deliberately causing the Great Depression. In several speeches made shortly after he lost the chairmanship of the committee, McFadden claimed that the Federal Reserve was run by Wall Street banks and their affiliated European banking houses.
McFadden said:
Mr. Chairman, we have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_...
Saying that credit card companies might have to face some simple disclosure and consumer protection laws after practicing USURY for the last 35 years is sort of like saying a president who spent the last eight years wrecking the world might have to worry about somebody throwing a shoe at him at some point.
What is the reward of playing the credit game and following the rules?
It used to be that having excellent credit allowed you to burrow money and buy a home.
The carrot is gone. There is no longer a reward; hence, no reason for any of you to continue paying your bills.
Those fuckers already kicked my ass.
Not only the credit card companies are screwing around. I'm in the process of being cheated out of $108 by Office Depot. I bought something with a credit/debit card, returned it to the store the following day and received a return credit slip. After a week and a half or so I noticed the money had not been credited back into my bank account so I called. Turns out the space-cadet assistant manager had given me a CASH return receipt but didn't give me the cash. But usually when you pay with a card and then return something the stores almost always credit the refund back to the card, so typically one is not thinking about scrutinizing the refund receipt to see what kind of receipt it is, (i.e. cash or credit/debit).
Now of course they are acting as though I'm trying to swindle them. So now,dealing with Office Depot, protect yourself by always scrutinizing any receipt for a return that you get, and if possible get a manager to sign off on it in some way.
As a disabled fellow on a very small fixed income I cannot afford the loss of this money. I'll fight these jerks for it with as much energy as I can muster. I hope some of you here might spread this alert about Office Depot around on the internets a bit. Maybe that kind of bad publicity might encourage them to do the right thing. Of course they'll probably be bankrupt in the next several months anyway, but it's worth a try.
I used to have a Capitol One Card. They pulled what I thought was an amazing scam. They returned our payment check uncashed and then charged us a late fee! Their excuse was that we had only put the last 4 digits of the account number on the check. This is what we had done for the previous 24 months and infact they cashed a similar check AFTER the returned check. What was equally amazing was that there was no government agency that one could complain to. It was clear that the card companies had free reign to do whatever they wanted. In my opinion this is long past due.
I confidently expect that there will be a last minute glitch to prevent these reforms. After all, didn't the Congress just rush through $700 billion to the financial "services" industry to keep the bribes coming?
Some time ago, I was a few days late on a credit card payment (Target/Citi Cards group), and my interest rate went from 11% to 22%. When I called, I was told that if I made a lump sum payment of $300 and was never late again, the interest rate would go back down to 11%, which it did. I was never late again but noticed about four months later that the interest rate went back up to 22%, which now seems almost reasonable, considering the usury interest rates credit card companies are allowed to charge. I was told, "A routine records check showed that your debt to income ratio is higher than we would like it to be." When I mentioned that we made a deal and that I kept my end of the bargain, I basically was told that nothing could be done, and the interest rate stayed at 22%.
That's the type of companies we're dealing with here, companies with no ethics that will gladly take billions of taxpayer dollars and dismiss the same taxpayers when they simply ask for an interest rate reduction. If Congress really wanted to help, it first and foremost would address the exhorbitant interest rates credit card companies are allowed to charge and see that they're lowered. It's the least they could do, the way they're throwing our money around.
I've had a Discover card since Sears owned it. The account is more than 10 years old. In excellent standing; I never pay late; never go over the limit; and never bounced a payment check.
I opened the bill in November (I have a small balance of $500) and saw the interest rate had increased 6%. I thought is was a mistake so I called them. This is basically what I was told by the very rude rep:
"In order to remain competitive in this challenging environment, Discover Card is raising interest rates in order to continue to provide our valued costumers with a range of services."
We went back and forth and the rep said there was nothing she could do as no offers were available to lower the new, higher interest rate on the card. No new offers? I didn't want a "new offer," I just wanted my old, 9.98% interest rate again.
So, I will pay the damned thing off by February and cancel it. It's clear they don't care about me -- a customer of more than a decade and now I don't care about them.
THIS ARTICLE SHOULD BE FRONT PAGE NEWS FOR ALL CREDIT CARD USERS.
there credit card holders got NEW rules, as of Jan 2009 the interest is going to 24.99% if I read it right. I see All the credit card co. jacking All there cards up as high as they can befor Obama gets in to office.
That's... just sad. I know people who have loans from them. Their rates were supposed to be excellent.
Is yet one more reason I'll never have a credit card.
All you need to do is arrange for automatic payment of bills when due. You can specify whether to pay the entire balance, minimum payment or other amount higher than the minimum. That will eliminate late fees, providing you have enough in your checking account to cover the bill.
OR
As I do. I auto-pay my balance every month. Citi and WAMU (soon to be JP MOrgan Chase) pay me rebates on purchases made. I don't worry about interest rates or late fees - EVER.
Works just fine for me. Everytime I accumulate >$50 (Citi) or >$100 (WAMU) I can ask for a check, which arrives with the following statement, or I let the amount grow and buy me a nice present.
29% interest was usury rates not long ago, & illegal.
I just paid off all my debt yesterday. The companies actually fought me on it,... doing sneaky things like stopping my automatic withdrawals & seeing if I would notice.
Even after my bills were finished, they would try to keep my accounts open after I had closed them, to try to hit me with service charges on a $0 balance.
What other business can operate like this?
With practices like these, how are the loan sharks and street criminals expected to compete. It looks like they can do everything short of breaking your legs.
saying that it is to little, to late for me and the credit card companies. I'm done. I would never get a credit card again, what a load of crap. I originally got a credit card to establish and improve my credit (what a joke) but was rudely awaken to the reality of these cards when I lost my job and couldn't afford to pay 2 credit card bills 1 month. My interest rates shot up to 18% and 24% respectively. And there is nothing I could do to bring them back down. It was hell getting out from under their clutches, but I'm finally free. Anytime credit card companies are allowed to bombard 18 and 19 year old college kids, in need of money, with credit cards with the sole hope that they are late with payments, you know the system is broken.
That is why so many people find it hard to have any sympathy for these banks, huge retailers or financial institutions. They have been screwing us over for 30 years without any sort of supervision or remorse. They long ago stop caring about their customers, so their customers should care about them? Not a chance.
And dear god, don't even trying to think of having a dispute with one of these companies. There is no such thing as consumer protection when Citibank is charging you fee, after fee, after fee because you refuse to pay a disputed charge. good grief. never again.
Usually when I go to make a deposit into my IRA, the teller will ask me if I am interested in a credit card virtually every time. That's like an insult to how much I am willing to save for retirement. So, after at least 2-3x sending an e-mail to Chevy Chase Bank urging them not to solicit me any credit cards, they agreed to mark me for "no soliciting" under my accounts with them...Now with Chevy Chase Bank on the verge of being acquired by Capital One, a notorious credit card lender and solicitor, I wonder if I will no longer receive solicitations for credit cards, or it will just resume by the time the name changes. Sigh, if only the banks would distance themselves from the credit card companies more!
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