Credit Card Debt Law

Credit card debt (or so called revolving credit) grew by an annual rate of 7.14 percent in May, while consumer debt grew by an annual rate of 3.64% in May, said the Federal Reserve - according to Forbes.

In its effort to save itself from the credit crisis, Citibank is risking alienating the majority of its customers and federal legislators and regulators as well.  Citibank started with a controversial new student loan policy announced after the Federal Reserve proposed regulations that would prohibit the announced practices.
Now, Citibank feels comfortable reconsidering promises made to [...]

Congress held hearings last week examining marketing practices of credit card companies to college students in conjunction with its consideration of credit card reform.  Here are a few of the articles from the past week covering the issue:

Taking Charge - Student Credit Card Issuers Under Investigation.

Washington Post - Too Young to Handle Credit?

Center for American [...]

A New York consumer is facing a lawsuit from Citibank to recover an interest rate of 56 percent on cash advances, according to WCBS.

A Las Vegas consumer owes ~ $1,200 on a credit card that she never used, according to the Herald-Leader.

“We had a credit party …”
A report from CNBC indicates that 15 million Americans are either receiving phone calls from creditors are are considering filing for bankruptcy.  And, according to the article, it’s not only the low income that are at the credit party.  Even high income households can get in trouble with credit card [...]

The Washington Post interviewed Obama on consumer debt and the housing crisis.

A Taking Charge article revealed that while the McCains pay zero percent interest on the American Express credit cards with the majority of their $200,000+ credit card debt, they pay a 25.99 percent interest rate on their Chase credit card - ten percentage points [...]

Even though the decision of the Federal Reserve not to increase interest rates last week should mean that consumers are safe from credit card interest rate increases (read more at Taking Charge), Pioneer Press reports that “[n]ervous banks are raising interest rates for almost any reason.”

Here’s the link to an ABC News article that has links to organizations and resources that can help you manage your credit card debt or report possible credit card fraud.  It has links to a variety of types of organizations - from consumer groups to regulators to credit counseling firms to Congressional leaders working on [...]

Atlanta-based Consumer Credit Counseling Service released an interesting statistic as part of an article about its housing counselors in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
“In 2007, the average client’s net worth was $23,569; today, that number is a negative: -$48,095.”
It would be interesting to know what caused that dramatic decline in net worth.  Are clients waiting longer before [...]

That’s the advice of Stuart Vyse, a Connecticut College psychology professor with a new book in 2008 called Going Broke.  Vyse puts the blame for American credit card debt on a combination of a lack of self control and the many temptations to spend money.
Although the advice that Vyse gave to the Hartford Courant in [...]