Comments on: Credit Card Rules May Be Enacted Sooner

By: thomas

thomas — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 04:56:10 +0000

Good riddance to some of these credit company scams.

By: Rick

Rick — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 02:50:48 +0000

I think it makes great sense for these reforms to emanate from the Fed as opposed to the political system. The politically motivated changes that filter through our system are rarely beneficial to us, as a whole. Rarely are they designed to benefit both the company AND the consumer – typically they favor one over the other. As a consumer, I (rather oddly) would rather see the companies benefit slightly more, as it gives them incentive to perform more efficiently.

A rating system is a horrendous idea. Because it would eventually be altered in such a way as to no longer provide the information it was originally designed to provide. More importantly, people would cease to pay attention to the fine print (which they rarely do anyway…to their detriment) and only look at the rating as the “guide” by which to make decisions. I know I can go to the local butcher and buy USDA Prime meat, or I can go to Costco and buy the same. The quality is vastly different, yet they are the “same” rating. I see the same problem with a credit card rating system. It sounds nice and easy, but rarely is. In fact, if my experience with the meat is any indication, I can tell you that you’ll wind up paying more for a poorer credit card…when a little extra work would get you a better credit card at the same rating level.

Government intervention, as I see it, rarely yields useful results and never works the way it is designed.

By: Elisa@Thrive

Elisa@Thrive — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 21:34:17 +0000

At Thrive we appreciate the efforts by the Fed but we are bigger fans of the two bills currently working their way through congress, also to temper predatory lending and to curb bad practices currently hurting consumers.

In addition, after several of our users, and millions of Americans have been hit with false charges this month, we are encouraging credit card users to fight back (http://blog.justthrive.com/2009/01/fraudulent-charges-what-do-you-do/) and keep scam artists in check.

Congress is taking important actions to protect us from bad legal practices but we have to also take action to keep scam artists in check.

By: Russell

Russell — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 18:24:32 +0000

A problem over here in teh UK is that it is impossible to cancel direct debits made on credit cards … so one has to cancel the card in order to get out of the direct debit. That can’t be fair! Thanks for an interesting post.

By: Rassah

Rassah — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 18:08:27 +0000

Um, wouldn’t the interest rate charged be one of the major factors of the credit card’s “quality”? And thus couldn’t a credit card offer you a very low interest 5-star card, then after you applied and they found out you have a bad credit score, give you a 1-star overly high interest rate card?