A credit bill of rights

A credit bill of rights

Seattle Times: Banks and the credit-card industry have no one to blame but themselves for the consumer-protection legislation working its way through Congress.

The Senate is expected quickly to take up the Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights passed by the House last week with a strong bipartisan vote of 357-70. The legislation brusquely pushes back against aggressive credit-card practices and greedy, abusive interest rates and fees.

U.S. consumers are more than a little upset by the indignities foisted upon them. As taxpayers, they are bailing out bankers with money from one pocket, while paying exorbitant charges to many of the same lenders from the other pocket.

Politicians have responded to the arrogance of a credit-card industry with no sense of proportion in the midst of a recession, or sense of timing after a national credit binge that made them wealthy.

Giving ordinary citizens a break means prohibiting retroactive rate increases on existing credit balances, except those more than 30 days late. Consumers would get 45 days’ notice of a rate increase. The no-brainer is to prohibit double-billing cycles that creditors use to charge interest on amounts already paid on time. Billing statements would have to be mailed at least three weeks ahead of the due date.

All the fine print and the game playing with deadlines and billing procedures is a gold mine for creditors, especially targeting young borrowers and the most harried and economically vulnerable among us.

Credit cards are useful and convenient, even in a recession. But harder financial times make the public wholly less willing to tolerate lending practices they ignored during credit-besotted times. Consumers will not put up with bankers trying to sop up red ink from real-estate losses with credit-card fees. Greedy creditors brought this legislation on themselves.