I am glad that this did not pass and I hope it continues to fail.

If you don't want to support credit card companies/banks/pay high interest don't get a fucking credit card

Save stupid from stupid for sure

Kudos to the Senate for keeping arbitrary gov't limits out of the credit market.

I don't think credit card companies should be able to massively increase your interest rate because you are late with one payment, but other than that, +1 to Ramirez.

If someone offers you a credit card with 30% interest and you accept the card and charge things with it, you then shouldn't whine, when you get charged 30% interest.

It is a very competitive market for credit card companies. They want and need your business. Keep that in mind. So, if you are paying an annual fee, you should call your credit card company and ask to have the fee waived or you will cancel the account. Going forward do not accept a credit card with an annual fee. Also, they have to get competitive on interest rates so you may be able to haggle with your current CC company on interest rate. The consumer has the power by the option to cancel the account. Free market FTW.

However, it shouldn't matter what your interest rate is because no one should be carrying a balance. If you have to carry a CC balance then readjust your lifestyle. Evil credit card companies win when you live beyond your means.

I know people who had no other option but to finance their college education on credit cards. But these people were smart enough to play the game of transferring balances to lower interest rate credit cards. I just want to point out that there are circumstances where it is not realistic to be able to pay it all off every month.

And let us not kid ourselves, this bill failed because our government is not designed to represent "the people". It is designed for those who can afford to purchase our government.

That's the problem - I do not have a problem with certain aspects of credit cards, but they really are evil fuckers who can and will change the rules mid-game. Do you read the fine print every time your bill comes?

I used to be really good with my cards - did not use them much, and generally either paid them off completely or kept a balance far below my limit and always paid far more than the minimum. I actually had a card which lowered my limit to just over my balance (since they weren't making money off me, I guess), and BAM! my interest pushed me over the limit, resulting in a bunch of extra expensive fees. That's what I call bullshit, and apparently so did a bunch of others, so there was a class-action suit which netted me about $20 after paying the lawyers. There were also times when a payment was marked 'late' despite being paid well in advance. Now, I have one for emergencies and things like car rental/hotels since they put a hold on your debit card (if they take it at all), pay on line well in advance, and keep the limit low and the balance lower, so it's at least easier to track.

But seriously, fuck a bunch of credit card companies. Usury laws exist for a reason, and it's bullshit that the credit card companies get away with things no other lender can or will.

By the way, weren't you guys the ones saying "follow the money trail to political influence" in all those other threads? Are credit card companies deserving of special treatment or something?

I'm one of those deadbeat customers who pays on time every month and has never been late. Capital One rewarded me by raising my interest rate from 4% to 15.9% completely unprovoked by anything I did or did not do.

I called them and after reviewing my account, they decided they wanted to keep me as a customer and froze my 4% interest rate until January 2010. I plan to pay the entire balance off by then and I will still be leaving them. They were supposed to protect me from the interest rate Vikings in their commercials but instead, they sent them after me.

In other news, I haven't used my Chase card (member since 1998) in two years. I have a zero balance on that card. It was my emergency card. Chase sent me a letter to tell me my account was automatically closed. I had a pretty high limit on that card and it was a very good mark on my credit as I have paid that card off multiple times since 1998. They decided to fuck me over by canceling my account and now my credit score will actually suffer for it.

I'm done with credit cards. I hope they enjoyed the interest payments from me over the years.

Your case in both instances is an unfortunate side-effect of the new credit laws that are going into effect. Chase does not want you as a customer because you don't use your card and therefore are costing them money by having a large credit limit. Capital One did it because they can.

Your credit won't get hit as bad as you think. What I would do is open a new account with Chase and use that card instead of the Capital One card. Chase has a really, really, good track record with fraud protection and they are big enough to bully merchants who try to scam their customers. Yes, I work for Chase in the Fraud department. Also keep in mind, that Chase is one of the few banks that's actually making money and hiring people, especially in Cbus.

Sorry about your luck though, seriously.