From 3/07 thru 2/08, about 70 million credit card accounts — nearly 1 in 4 had interest rates raised

[flpoljunkie]

From March 2007 through February 2008, about 70 million credit card accounts — nearly one in four accounts — had their interest rates raised, costing consumers at least $10 billion in additional finance charges, estimates Pew Charitable Trusts, a public policy group.

From 'White House and Congress Target Credit Card Rates' by Kathy Chu--worth reading in its entirety.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/credit/2009-04-22-credit-card-rates-obama_N.htm

[wyldwolf]

1. and it's the underhanded excuses they use to raise them

I paid off one card and canceled it but oops! In the time it took for them to get my check, they tacked on $20 additional interest to my balance. Silly me in thinking I'd paid them off, I ignored any further mail from them. So I went 30 days past due on that additional interest.

Then ANOTHER card, citing that delinquency, upped my interest rate.

[flpoljunkie]

2. We will see if Congress stands up against their benefactors/campaign contributors to stop this crap

Banks feel they are in a strong position to either stop the bills and/or water them down. Will President Obama stand up for the American people as he promised when he campaigned for the presidency? The banks ought to be in a weak position with all the TARP funds they have received, but they have continued plying Congress with political contributions--'legalized bribery' as Molly Ivins' so aptly called it.

[joeglow3]

5. Did they up your rate on your existing balance or future purchases?

The former is bull****. The latter, I am fine with. I would just cancel that card and look for another.

[Bluenorthwest]

3. Honestly, my entire view of the bail outs

comes from the day Bank of America jacked my rates to 24% on an account that was far below the limit, always paid early and more than the minimum and just after I got off the phone with their rude representative, I opened the paper to read that Bank of America execs had just asked the Feds for billions because they were sure their credit card customers were going to default en mass.
The very idea of forcing people into defalut (not me, by the way) and then demaning the same people pay them billions for that, while the administration was speaking only about saving the banks, and acting as if the billions the banks were getting were leading the banks to behave in decent ways toward customers. I got so sick of hearing that the banks were the only thing that mattered, while the banks were so clearly scamming the Feds, taking our tax money, and abusing us as customers.
That article about B of A asking for billions stuck in my craw, and honestly everytime Geitner speaks about helping the banks, I feel he's serving the ones who did and do constant wrong, and I get the feeling that Tim does not even comprehend what the banks are doing. He seems to think they are incapable of anything but good faith, even in the face of all that has happened.
So at least they are talking about this, the one thing that almost all Americans deal with. Defending the people who are shaking us down needs to stop very quickly.

[flpoljunkie]

4. Congress needs to act now, not let the banks continue this highway robbery until July, 2010.

Geithner is scheduled to be at the credit card meeting today, as well as Larry Summers, whose main concern seems to be people acting more responsibly in their credit card use--no apparent concern the banks are ripping people off while an impotent Congress does nothing to stop it.