After growing consumer complaints about hidden fees and other tricks of the credit card trade, the rules proposed by the Federal Reserve on Friday to deal with unfair or deceptive practices are a modest step forward. But the final versions of these rules will probably not go into effect until next year, and the nation’s bankers are already mounting a strong opposition to any changes in the rough ways they are allowed to do business.
Representative Carolyn Maloney, the New York Democrat who has been pushing the important Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights in Congress, raised the right fears as the Fed proposal was announced. “These rules may be watered down. They might not be put into effect at all,” she scoffed. “The Federal Reserve is not in the Constitution to correct abuses. We are, and there are abusive, abusive, abusive practices going on now.”
...Congress needs to take up the issue now rather than wait for the Federal Reserve to create rules that can be too easily changed. Representative Maloney already has 110 co-sponsors on her bill in the House, but the measure is stuck in the Financial Services Committee. So far, one Republican on the committee has been brave enough to support her bill — Representative Christopher Shays of Connecticut.
Our own Geoff Davis sits on the Financial Services Committee. Please contact him today and ask him to support Rep. Carolyn Maloney’s Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights.
(For a one-page summary of the bill’s main provisions, click here.)
