January 23,2009
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Your Story: Deception Exposed, Pt.4
– ‘Taking Actions' and ‘Exorbitant Penalties'.Finally, we get to the good part. The next response should come as some good news for victimized credit card holders. Respondent ‘slippy' speaks of taking action with the Federal Reserve this past year and being well compensated financially. Two financial institutions were reported for ‘slippery payment due dates' with the alleged purpose of snagging honest and prudent credit card holders who automate monthly payments. Of course, when payment due dates slide forward enough, millions of credit card holders can be affected, especially those responsible enough to provide guaranteed payment using the originally agreed due date. The new practice of ‘floating due dates' must have derailed a large number of victims for this, and many other reasons, as well. But, apparently, the Fed didn't approve of it and took some action. So, if you're a victim of this deceptive practice, then it may be worth the while of contacting the Fed and seeking financial restitution, as well.
The next write-in comes from ‘Dem45' with questions about taking Action. This person is concerned that reporting abuse to the FDIC would result in recriminations by the credit card lender. Considering that no such reports have turned up either in any of these 111 responses nor in several months of research, it might be safe to assume that this is not a wide-spread problem. Take a lesson from the previous respondent, ‘slippy', and consider that, not only can it help the credit card community at large but also, there may be financial incentives as well.
The final writing of this series exposing common abuses toward credit card consumers concerns ‘Exorbitant Penalties' 'MilwaukeeMike' lists several bad experiences (perhaps not all are direct) with the ‘strike one' punishment of making one late credit card payment, hiking the account's APR so steeply. He believes, as do most others, that the APR hikes to 20% are exorbitant.