October 2, 2009
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News: Federal Credit Card Regs Moving Up?
Most credit card consumers agree that what we have now isn’t working. The credit card industry has saw fit to take full advantage of the extended grace period to comply by lambasting the hapless consumer. Like never before, we are seeing our credit limits slashed, interest rates doubled (or more) and new fees and penalties spreading like weeds. We need some help and the feds are responding. On October 8, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the Financial Services Committee has scheduled a meeting to address this issue. Along with U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., Frank is proposing legislation to accelerate the recent credit card regulations by almost three months.
After three long years, Sen. Dodd (D-Conn) managed to get his Credit Card bill through Congress and signed into law by President Obama. This happened way back in May and was billed as the CCARDA (Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act),. As a landmark reform for the credit card industry, it was deem so big that the industry insisted that it would take them at least nine months to implement. The grace period was granted. But, since that time, our nation has seen a deplorable deterioration in conditions that have been handed down to the consumers.
The committee meeting on Thursday is to create a plan of action to shorten this abused grace period from mid-February of next year down to December 1 of this year. Senator Frank is disgusted with what's going on in the industry and announced at a recent press conference that he was "disappointed in card firms, who had asked for a nine-month delay in implementing the rules, only to use that time to push through rate increases and other charges for customers." For a greater insight into what's taking place, please refer to the upcoming article series entitled: "Congress Must Spank CC Industry Again".