Filed under: Money and Finance Today, Personal finance

Congress is holding hearings today to denounce the credit card practice of raising interest rates of customers who pay on time just because their credit score went down. The real investigation should be of the credit reporting agencies and how they determine those mysterious credit scores. Also, a credit score should be available for free at least once a year just like a credit report is free yearly.

This issue should have been part of the new bankruptcy bill that Congress passed in 2005 when it was clear that the credit card company practices of jacking up interest rates on credit cards to between 25% and 30% was helping to push people over the edge to bankruptcy. But Congress ignored the problem and just made it harder to file for bankruptcy.

Why can credit card companies charge so usurious rates? That’s because credit card rates are set on a state by state basis and some states allow more freedom to jack up rates. That’s why credit cards are based in states like North Dakota or Delaware that allow these outrageous rates.

Continue reading Congress denouncing credit card practices, but why now?

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 at 1:24 am and is filed under Stocks Money News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.