Your complaints over interest rate hikes, ridiculous new fees and higher minimum payments were heard loud and clear! The House just froze rate hikes on your credit card balances, and gave you new protections starting Dec. 1 – just in time for the holidays.
Now we need the Senate to hear us and do the same! Send a message to your Senators right now and tell them you can't afford to wait for a February law to stop the credit card companies' abusive tactics. (If you were recently hit with a rate hike or fee, let your Senators know in the space below).
The card companies are taking advantage of the delay to hike interest rates on good customers, and the longer Congress waits, the more time the banks have to ding our wallets with another round of tricks and fees.
Send a message to your Senators to put credit card reforms in place NOW – we can't afford to wait any longer!
Subject: Implement credit card reform NOW
Dear Senator
[Last Name],
American consumers need financial relief this holiday season, especially from abusive credit card company tactics designed to wring every last cent from us before the Credit CARD Reform Act goes into effect next February.
I'm urging you to immediately pass the Expedited CARD Reform for Consumers Act of 2009 (S 1833, HR 3639) so we can start getting the protections Congress already approved at a time we need them the most -- the holiday season.
[Your personal comments about credit card rate hikes or fees will be added here.]This measure will simply give me important protections that Congress already approved in May. Unfortunately, the reforms don't get fully implemented until Feb. 22, 2010, and credit card companies have been using the delay to hike interest rates, increase penalty fees and double minimum payments, among other things. Meanwhile, countless good customers who pay on time each month are suffering.
The House just passed a bipartisan bill to implement the credit card reforms by Dec. 1 to prevent further consumer abuses at the hands of the banks. The reality is I can't afford another four months while the banks find new ways to increase their profits at my expense. I urge you to put these already-approved reforms in place now, and give us the help you promised when passing the original bill.
If American consumers are truly the backbone of our economy, then it's time we got the same priority and help when it comes to our finances as the giant banks received. I urge you to put in place reforms already approved in the Credit CARD Act immediately, so we get a fair shake on our credit cards. It's time Congress gives real help and sensible protections to consumers from financial abuses -- rather than using our taxpayer money to bailout the big banks that got us in this mess.