Senator Dodd Wants to Expedite the CARD Act

Senator Chris Dodd (D CT) wants to speed up enforcement of the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act (which is set to kick into effect on February 22, 2010). Senator Dodd wants to put some provisions into immediate effect.
Senator Dodd will introduce a bill to immediately freeze credit card interest rates on existing balances.

The Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act enacted in May prevents arbitrary interest rate, fee and finance charge increases on a customer’s existing balance. Unfortunately, credit card companies have been jacking up rates in a last ditch effort to squeeze customers before all of the bill’s provisions can take effect.

According to Senator Dodd, “the Credit CARD Act requires 45 day notification of interest rate increases, and lengthens from 14 days to 21 days the amount of time before the due date that a statement must be delivered.” The bill Dodd introduced today would force companies to immediately freeze rates on existing balances until the remaining provisions in the Credit CARD Act go into effect.

“We worked long and hard to enact the safeguards included in the Credit CARD Act,” said Dodd, who had introduced the bill in 2004, 2005 and 2008 before successfully passing it this spring. “And no sooner had it been signed into law, but credit card companies were looking for ways to get around the protections this Congress and the American people demanded. This bill would end those abuses and further protect customers today.”

The Bill is Senate Bill S.1927, introduced on October 26, 2009. The title is: “A bill to establish a moratorium on credit card interest rate increases, and for other purposes.” You can read more about the bill here.

About This Author

Comments are closed