Fed OKs plan to rein in unfair, deceptive credit cards

[flashl]

WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve and other regulators initiated steps Friday to end "unfair and deceptive" credit card industry practices assailing consumers who are already struggling to cope in a bad economy.

The proposed rules would be the biggest clampdown on the industry in decades, aiming at protecting people from credit card companies that arbitrarily raise interest rates or don't give borrowers adequate time to pay their bills.

...

The proposed new rules would prohibit:

_Placing unfair time constraints on payments. A payment could not be deemed late unless the borrower is given a reasonable period of time, such as 21 days, to pay;

_Unfairly allocating payments among balances with different interest rates, with lenders crediting payments to balances with lower rates so they can continue to charge interest for balances at higher rates;

_Retroactively raising interest rates on pre-existing balances;

_Placing too-high fees for exceeding the credit limit solely because of a hold placed on the account;

_Unfairly computing balances in a computing tactic known as double-cycle billing;

_Unfairly adding security deposits and fees for issuing credit or making credit available;

_Making deceptive offers of credit.

Reuters

Too little, too late.

[atjrpsych]

1. it is about time!

Finally they are started to pay attention to this issue. Another one of Bush's disasters...