Credit Card Practices

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Your credit score just dropped, but you didn't do anything wrong. Millions of borrowers are in the same boat. Someone changed the rules of the game and consumers are the ones taking the hit. And fair or not, it couldn't have come at a worse time.

Remember when credit cards were the best things ever? We Americans were in love with the notion of buying goods and services without having to carry cash. And for a nominal fee, we could carry a balance on our bill and pay it off over time. It was credit heaven.

So what happened? It's simple: the credit card industry figured out it could make BIG money off Joe Consumer by upping the interest rates on those balances and charging exorbitant late fees. Now, instead of loving our credit cards, we have become slaves to them, and we hate them.

According to a recent J.D. Power and Associates poll, credit cards are the nation's least favorite financial product. They ranked lower than mortgages, and in this era of foreclosures that's a pretty strong indication that credit cards are widely disliked. People based their opinions on the fact that late fees have increased and limits have fallen, sometimes without warning.

Big bank credit card issuers are surely in line for some of that bad consumer feeling as well. Many Americans are angry and upset that though big banks took our taxpayer dollars to bail them out from financial ruin, they are not willing to do the same for their loyal and longtime customers and help consumers (and our economy) through these hard times. Just as credit card hatred is driving consumers to find other options, the big bank attitude could be driving consumers to find alternatives to them, too. Small community banks and credit unions--who, by the way, have lower interest rates and have never asked for or received a federal bailout--are reaping the benefit by gathering more new customers, many of whom used to bank at the biggies.

Maybe it's about time. We've wised up to the greed being practiced by the credit card companies and big banks and now--while we can't live without them--we can find ways around them.

See: Consumers are mad as hell and not taking it anymore -- from the banks! And while the big banks are banking on bigger fees -they're bringing on more public outrage.

Watch the below video; A screwball parody of Ashton Kutcher's "Punk'd" offered by Americans for Fairness in Lending.

Sarah Byrnes of AFFIL and partner of AFFIL Ira Rheingold, Executive Director and General Counsel for the National Association of Consumer Advocates talk more about credit card reform and borrowers rights on ListenToSpotLight.com