October 05, 2009
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Congress Must Spank CC Industry Again, Pt.1
"Don't make me come in there..."Well, tomorrow's the day. This series follows up the news article posted on Friday concerning the upcoming revalidation which Congress had deemed necessary because of heightened abuses by the credit card industry. Back in May the industry was spanked with the CCARDA (Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act) for aggravated abuse on credit card consumers. As a grace period, the industry was given nine months to clean up it’s act and attain compliance to the new regulations set forth.
Unfortunately, since that time, it has turned out to be a grace time with which to enact even more abuse on hapless credit card consumers before the deadline takes effect. That deadline was originally scheduled to be in effect by February 20 of next year. But, because of the rampant misbehavior which immediately followed where many in the industry took advantage of the grace time to hike interest rates, drop credit limits to less then 100th the amount that they were and devise all sorts of new fees and penalties and all without any cause on the part of the defenseless credit card consumer.
Congress was receiving thousands of complaints by abused credit card holders each month asking for relief. So, stalwart consumer protective advocates, U.S. Reps. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Barney Frank, D-Mass, are coming to the rescue. They have called a meeting that will convene on Thursday (10/8) to address the issue. The main agenda is the probably necessity of shortening this grace period back to December 1, coming.
Already, the first phase of CCARDA has taken effect. Back in August, the requirement of credit card lenders to afford a notice of, at least, 45 days to consumers before exacting significant changes to their accounts. So, before that deadline, significant change notices with little or no warning were issued by the millions in time to "get under the bar". But now, even though that deadline has passed, millions more of notices are still being issued but this time, with the 45-day notice.