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Citigroup is reneging on a promise it made to tens of millions of credit card customers in good times. After pledging that it would no longer reserve the right to raise interest rates at any time for any reason, Citigroup now plans to start raising rates for customers who have not had an increase in at least two years. The move appears to backpedal from a commitment that Citigroup executives made to Congress in early 2007 when they tried to fend off greater regulation by promising not to raise rates until an account expires. Citigroup attributed its decision to the...

A massive tidal wave of bad credit card debt is surging toward Wall Street, prompting more investor panic and pushing more consumers to the brink of financial devastation. That’s according to Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, an international investment research and advisory firm. Its latest report, “Credit Cards at a Tipping Point,” forecasts that credit card charge-offs by financial institutions will reach near $100 billion by the end of 2009. Charge-offs are when credit card accounts have been deemed irrecoverable or there has been no payment for 120 days, according to Innovest. The economy already is shaky under the crushing weight...

The impact of ultra-tight credit markets is hitting your credit cards, and you might not even realize it. On The Early Show Tuesday, financial contributor Vera Gibbons explained that lenders are tightening terms in numerous ways, and you need to be aware of all of them to avoid possible trouble down the road. Behind the changes is the simple fact that lenders want to protect themselves from bad debt, so they're tightening standards and practices in hopes of avoiding defaults by credit card users. What are they up to? LOWER CREDIT LIMITS This is the biggest and perhaps most ominous...

Credit-card holders, you’re in for a rough ride. As the financial crisis deepens, some experts say card issuers will be even quicker to raise interest rates, drop people’s spending limits and tighten up credit. “You can definitely expect that banks will tighten up the credit-card market,” said Bill Hardekopf, chief executive officer of LowCards.com. “We’ve now moved into a more risky and tenuous financial environment.” Even consumers who have good credit habits are expected to suffer some as credit-card issuers move to minimize their exposure and maximize revenue. “What’s happening—and will continue happening until things get better—is credit-card companies are...

Aren't Chris Matthews and Hardball the champions of the little guy? You know, those folks, embittered by the bad economic times, who get exploited off by questionable financial institutions? So why does Hardball have as a sponsor a lender with a target market of the down-and-out, that charges borrowers . . . over 99% per annum in interest? [Large screencap showing fine print after the jump.] There I was watching this afternoon's Hardball, when, just after Matthews got through playing [for the umpteenth time today on MSNBC] clips from Tina Fey's latest Sarah Palin impression, on came an ad for...

The Federal Reserve on Friday issued proposals to restrict various credit-card billing practices, including double-cycle billing and unreasonable late charges. The proposals aim to protect credit-card users and clarify costs by prohibiting actions such as raising an annual percentage rate unless certain exceptions apply, treating a payment as late unless consumers have been provided with a reasonable amount of time to make payments and unfairly maximizing charges. -SNIP- In a statement Friday, Edward Yingling, president and chief executive of the American Bankers Association, said the Fed's proposal is an "unprecedented regulatory intrusion" into the marketplace. "The proposal would greatly restrict...

Hawkins seeks ban on payday lenders By Robert W. Dalton Published: Sunday, December 30, 2007 State Sen. John Hawkins is abandoning his efforts to impose stronger regulations on payday lenders. Instead, Hawkins wants to outlaw the industry in South Carolina. "They're making far too much money to accept any meaningful regulations," said Hawkins, R-Spartanburg. "I've come to realize they are similar to video poker in that regard, and they've used every trick in the book to fight real regulations." Hawkins - one of several attorneys who have filed suit against payday lenders claiming they knowingly make loans to people who...

The Social Blessings of "Usury" by Glen Tenney [Posted on Wednesday, December 14, 2005] [To receive the Daily Article in your inbox, go to email services, and tell others too!] In a front-page article in the Birmingham News of November 22, staff writer Russell Hubbard reported that the Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that the high interest rates charged by payday lenders in Alabama from 1998 through 2003 were "usurious" and therefore illegal. Though high-interest payday loans have been legal in Alabama since 2003 (albeit with a cap on the actual rate charged) an attorney named Mike Skotnicki suggests that possibly...

David Blond sees lessons in ancient Roman times that American moneymen and manufacturers might do well to heed At the end of the Roman Republic the plutocrats of the Senate and the First Class viewed government as the means of ensuring their own supremacy and wealth. The Republicans—Cicero, Cato and Pompey—brought on the Civil War by trying to deny Caesar his well-earned rights. Caesar, not Cicero, was the reformer and patron of the powerless. It was the Republicans, the elite of their day, who wished to maintain the “old ways” or “mos maiorum.” Caesar defeated the Republicans, and once in...

BIS warns on domestic and international debt By Chris Giles in London Published: June 27 2005 20:26 | Last updated: June 27 2005 20:26 Growing domestic and international debt has created the conditions for global economic and financial crises, the Bank for International Settlements warned on Monday. The Basel-based organisation's annual report said no one could predict if and when such international economic imbalances would unravel but “time might well be running out”. The warning by the world's oldest international financial institution the central bankers' bank was designed to puncture the complacency prevalent among economic policymakers after 2004's global growth,...

BNP Paribas, Saddam Hussein’s favourite bank, is in the payday loan shark business, finding many of its customers from within the ranks of American military personal. Keeping it confidential which companies it is involved with on the new business front, the bank is operating with impunity. In its BNP-Paribas Watch, www.innercitypress.org reports that BNP is staying mum on which companies it is involved in on a flourishing new cottage industry in the U.S.: 7-11-style payday loan type operations. As prolific as dandelions in spring, payday loan storefront operations are thick around military bases. An underwear clad Saddam may be lingering...

It says it right there on our license plates: Arkansas — The Natural State And in the Natural State, poor suckers make natural prey. Like too many other Southern states, the Natural State is a loan shark's paradise. You may have heard of payday lenders. You can find them in almost any poor neighborhood. These financial predators will gladly advance you money on your paycheck at an unconscionable rate of interest. Sometimes it's as high as 300 percent a year, sometimes higher. Surprisingly, the small print says nothing about a pound of flesh, but the effect can be almost as...

THE Illinois House last week passed reasonable rules for the payday loan industry. If the Senate follows suit, as it certainly should, some down-on-their-luck Illinoisans should be saved from penury. Payday loan shops provide a needed service - at an outrageous price. They provide small, short-term loans to people who can't get them elsewhere. Most are people shunned by credit card companies because of low income or bad credit history. If your car is broken down, and you need it for work, the payday loan store will provide money to pay the bill. But charges are steep, averaging $20 to...

gt. John J. Savage III, an Army reservist, was about to climb onto a troop transport plane for a flight to Iraq from Fayetteville, N.C., when his wife called with alarming news: "They're foreclosing on our house." Sergeant Savage recalled, "There was not a thing I could do; I had to jump on the plane and boil for 22 hours." Advertisement He had reason to be angry. A longstanding federal law strictly limits the ability of his mortgage company and other lenders to foreclose against active-duty service members. But Sergeant Savage's experience was not unusual. Though statistics are scarce, court...

The Senate passed legislation Thursday that will make it harder for Americans to rid themselves of debt by filing for bankruptcy. The House is expected to pass the measure next month, delivering to President Bush a second victory this year on pro-business legislation he had sought. The vote was 74-25 to approve the most thorough overhaul of bankruptcy laws in a quarter-century.

Banks used to frown on customers who overdrew their accounts, but not any more. Bank of America and Citizens Bank are offering a loosely regulated service called bounce protection, which automatically allows customers to overdraw their accounts by several hundred dollars at an automated teller machine or while using a debit card at a restaurant or store. Customers are charged fees ranging from $17 to $33 each time they overdraw their accounts unless they opt out of the service. That means if a customer who has $200 in his checking account and withdraws $300 from an ATM machine or spends...

Lender takes all in repo cases The cost is high and so is the risk for borrowers who post car titles as collateral for quick cash. Two identical neon signs burn with a seductive green glow. "LOANS." These storefront signs beckon to more than 60,000 people a day driving along Tara Boulevard in Jonesboro. It's a faded stretch of massage parlors, a tattoo shop and a DUI school on a street whose name evokes antebellum gentility. It also was Rod Aycox's launchpad to the top of one of the most controversial and highest-priced credit industries in America: automobile title lending....

A new credit card aimed at millions of low-income families is to charge interest at up to 70% - the highest ever charged by a credit card company. Marketed under the slogan: "Stay in control of your budgeting", the typical interest rate on the new Vanquis card will be 49.9%, but for some customers the company judge as high risk, it will be 69.5%. MPs and debt campaigners yesterday condemned the rate, which is 15 times the Bank of England base rate and triple the standard rate on other cards. The card also has an annual fee of £19. Norman...

When Ed Schwebel was whittling down his mound of credit card debt at an interest rate of 9.2 percent, the MBNA Corporation had a happy and profitable customer. [...] Mr. Schwebel, 58, a semiretired software engineer in Gilbert, Ariz., was not pleased that his minimum monthly payment jumped from $502 in June to $895 in July. But what really made him angry, he said, was the sense that he was being punished despite having held up his end of the bargain with MBNA. [...] Invoking clauses tucked into the fine print of their contract agreements, lenders are doubling or tripling...

Muslim students call for sharia-friendly loans Polly Curtis Monday April 26, 2004 Pressure is mounting on the Department of Education and Skills to provide a Muslim-friendly student loan. Representatives of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies met with the education secretary, Charles Clarke, last week to discuss the problem, which affects students and their families who believe that taking out a student loan contravenes Islamic sharia law. The law dictates that Muslims should not pay or receive interest on loans. However, the Muslim community is split over whether student loans, which incur inflation-only levels of interest, are against sharia law....