Plastic Surgery

This CNN story on credit card 'rate jacking' was a trifle ironic:

In September, Maloney got the House to pass by an overwhelming margin of 200 votes the "credit card holders' bill of rights," which would have stopped rate-jacking and the imposition of other fees by banks.

But the bill has languished in the Senate since September. "There's a lot of pushback from the financial industry," she said. Critics say that pushback is linked to donations from the banking industry to the politicians responsible for regulating credit cards.

Hmm. Chris Dodd is on the Senate banking committee and has taken millions in campaign contributions from the finance sector, which CNN did mention. But for some reason they forgot to mention Joe Biden, (D-MBNA) whose state houses the corporate headquarters of many of these same rate-jacking credit card jackalopes.

Anyway, the Federal Reserve today enacted some credit card restrictions that will take effect July 1, 2010 (guess the financial industry is far too tattered now to take away their biggest instruments of loan-sharking, two week late fees and the rate jacking). These will help.

But it's not only credit cards companies. Anecdotally speaking, banks are also playing fast and loose with things like overdraft fee computations and monthly service fees. Sneaky SOBs. Yet options are readily available for revenge, such as a simple tool known as a pair of scissors.