I guess that many of you saw the Frontline (PBS) show on credit cards last night.

Boy, these folks who sell credit cards have a whole lot of nerve, and so far no one seems to be taking them to task.

Probably the wildest thing I learned last night was about unilateral changes to your monthly percentage rate of interest.

I already knew that being an hour "late" with a payment made you subject to such jumps in rates.
But what I didn't know was that ANY (downward only, it seems) change in your credit rating gives the credit card company, as specified right there in most "contracts", the right to raise your rate too. Never mind that you always paid THEM on time - you miss ANY payment to ANYBODY and you will get a sudden higher rate!!!
The justification for this is that you are now a bigger "risk". Always was interesting to me that the riskier you were the more the banks charged for credit... making the hole deeper before you ever tried to work your way out of it. Now on "regular" credit (loans) this is somewhat understandable because you always have the option to decline. But once you've got a $10,000 due amount on your credit card you're in no position to "decline" yet they heap it on, assuring your total destruction!!!

Another interesting point that was raised was the legality of charging that increased rate on purchases made at lower rates (while you had a lower percentage rate). This seems inherently WRONG to me - after all, a "contract" is a "contract" - but it seems that thee isn't much going on in the way of challenging that!

By the way - what a "contract"!!! It can be changed unilaterally by the credit card issuer with only 15 days notice! So you sign up for 0% and they **could** change the contract 15 days later and change it to 20%.

Finally, the U.S. card issuers made as much from "fees" last year as they did from interest charges!

Enjoy those credit cards folks!!! I keep hoping that some day people will all get together and tell the credit card companies to SHOVE IT and simply stop paying. If the companies keep up with this kind of crap, I may just see it happen!

cheers