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Finally Congress is working on the average Joe’s behalf! 

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.

Through down-right deceptive practices, the credit cards companies are nickle and diming you and I. Last quarter Visa made a wapping $280 million dollars profit and 28 percent gain from the year early.

Here are what 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;

_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.

The agencies said the proposed rules also would require federal credit unions to give consumers a chance to opt out of an overdraft protection program. And they would prohibit those institutions from charging a fee for an overdraft caused by a hold placed on consumer’s funds when a person uses a debit card.

For more information:

Federal Reserve: http://www.federalreserve.gov/

National Credit Union Administration: http://www.ncua.gov/RegulationsOpinionsLaws/proposed_regs.html

Categories: Savings & Deals
Tags: credit card bill, credit card companies