The only thing that has me all kinds of happy is the death of the Double-Cycle.

We should put it on a stick and parade it around the square for all to see.

However, I can see future creative accounting coming up with something just as sinister.

I still don't understand why they are providing the CC companies with over a year to comply. 20 days notice seems like enough - it was enough time for the CC companies to notify consumers to changes in their rules.

It seems inevitable that based on the law of unintended consequences, we will see an increase in the soon-to-be-banned practices between now and when the ban goes into effect.

I can't wait until the Bush lackeys are out and Obama's people put a more pro-consumer spin on this. You know they passed the final rules when they did so that Obama has to go through the process to change them.

@zentex: You are correct. I'm sure the bankers are ringing the cell phones of Satan and his minions right now to try to figure out new 'Streams of revenue' to offset these rules.

@wjmany: what seems like is happening is that the politicians are being politicians and trying to make everyone happy.

They know consumers and debtors are dying from credit cards and something needs to be done.
They also get tons of money from credit card company lobbies.

They give them a year to figure out more ways to screw us, we think they did us a favor

@tedyc03: Unless the banks have gotten to him first. People forget he is just another politician and not the saviour.

@wjmany: Easy, it gives the CC companies plenty of time to screw us under the existing rules. I guess everyone should expect their interest rates to go up over the next 12 months.

@Triborough: Yeah, but after the last eight years even mediocrity will seem pretty good.

Would someone mind explaining what double cycle billing is and why it is bad for us?

@tedyc03: I'm inclined to believe Triborough here. He's not the second coming or prophet. He's a politician with a job and not on his second term.

@wjmany: lol! perfect reasoning. better yet, let's pass the bill, make it effective immediately, & just tell them they had 20 days & we sent them a notice.

what about universal default?

"Bills must be sent at least 21 days before they're due, unless delivered electronically"

I KNEW there was a reason why I continued to opt-out of electronic statements.

Actually, no, I didn't know. I just like getting mail.
:(

@Larry Urban: Here's a good explanation, from about.com.

@wjmany: In all fairness, they have to change the business logic that is built into so many of their systems to handle the rule changes. It requires development, testing, and eventually implementation.

"Yes, but they can do that sooner..." sure, if they had nothing better for their IT staff to do. But they've already got other projects going on.

"But I still think they can do it earlier." Most companies probably can. It is likely a matter of how much money they're wanting to put into it. But you got to allow for a little extra time for the not-so-quick companies to update their business logic as well. So you can't just target a date for the fastest players in an industry only.

@wjmany: Speaking as an IT guy, and a former Capital One employee (forgive me), but mostly as an IT guy . . . systems do have to be changed to implement these new rules, and it takes time to design, code, and test. Perhaps not a year, but you'd be surprised. As evil as most Consumerists think credit card companies to be (and I don't disagree!), they are subject to some pretty rigorous auditing from the federal government, so they really do have to try hard to get things right. The systems that I worked on at Cap1 were very thoroughly tested and subject to stringent change controls. Of course, I have no idea what happens there now.

If/when a company gives you 20 days notice on a change of terms, it's not like they give you notice and then start working on the systems. The system modifications will have planned and tested for months before that so that when the actual customer notification goes out, the only thing left is to "flip the switch".

@Larry Urban: double cycle billing calculates your finance charges based on your average balance over two billing cycles, instead of your average daily balance during the billing cycle you're in. the result is that you end up paying more finance charges on declining balances than you normally would.

Why would someone push an entire .22 cartridge into a credit card, unless that is some sort of rocket thing. Really silly pic.

1) Raising APRs, especially on existing balances, restricted
Gee, could this be why rates are being jacked up now?

They lock you into that 30% interest rate before the law goes into effect and in 2010 will point out they are following the law by not raising it higher.

I expect rates to go higher than 30% prior to implementation.

@CarpForAll: that's what has me nervous. I suspect that 6-3 months prior to the new regulations there will be yet another across-the-board interest rate hike, and then very little if any decreasing as time goes on.

Well, alot of the good features are still there. Deceptive advertising seems like it should have been a no-brainer to stay on there but apparently not.

Universal default is unfair and should really go. You should not be punished for having a bad track record with another company. There is any number of reasons including their own fault for that happening.

If you were late on a Chase card, I could understand all your Chase cards going up, but not Citi cards or American Express cards.

There's some good in there, and also a lot of confusing. I'm just thankful they still allow deceptive advertising. I don't even want to think about how the banking industru would collapse if they had to be honest!

@wjmany: Citi will move your due date if you complain the mail is taking too long on delivering your mail in a timely manner.

@Triborough: Yes, those seeking "REAL" change should know that that can only happen by NOT electing someone from those two business owned political parties...

@wjmany: I still don't understand why they are providing the CC companies with over a year to comply. 20 days notice seems like enough

I know you're joking but, someone has to write some code somewhere.

/I would be afraid to see the results that would happen if programmers only had 20 days to write, test, and debug these changes.

/I suppose you want documentation and comments in the code as well :D

@Larry Urban: Basically you are getting charged for the balance you have and the balance you already may have paid off.

[credit.about.com]

[allfinancialmatters.com]

Credit cards? Sorry, cash or debit cards only. Don't have the money can't buy it. Boom. Done.

My GM Card statement has been arriving much further after the bill date lately, giving me about a 9-day window out of the 30-day cycle to pay it. I have to time my bill paying around that one bill because it's become the most restrictive, and also because of the penalty of $30 for being a day late.

The "Bills must be sent at least 21 days before they're due" rule should give me another 5 days.

@mac-phisto: do we get to charge exorbitant late fees for not complying by 2 pm on the effective date?

What about banning universal default? Is that rule still there?

@kwsventures: I'm with you on "Don't have the money? Can't buy it." But that's how I use my credit card, and I like the fraud protection and ability to do chargebacks that comes with a CC (even though I've never done a chargeback). Debit cards creep me out because if it gets stolen, I lose actual real money.

@catastrophegirl: most definitely.

incidentally, you just saved me from an exorbitant late fee b/c i damn near forgot to pay my c.c. bill (due today by 3:00pm). thank you SOOOO much!

@zentex: I could be wrong (as I haven't read the whole 284 page report), but I think the gist of the rules here regard interest rates on existing balances.

Currently, if you have a CC at 5%, and a balance of $8,000 on that card, the CC company can change your rate to 25%, and that new rate applies to your existing balance. What I think the new legislation does is lock your existing balance in at the 5% while all new purchases are subject to your new 25% rate.

I don't think (though, again, I could be wrong) it limits the rate on your CC.

@AlvitaDisco:
The companies are only prohibited from reaching back to earlier billing cycles when calculating interest in the current billing cycle.
Nothing says they can't reach forward and use your average balance to pre-bill you for interest in the current and NEXT billing cycle.

@tedyc03: He's still a politician (from Illinois). All we can really expect from Obama is that he'll suck less than his predecessor.

@kwsventures: You can use credit cards and still not spend money unless you have it, if you pay off your balance in full every month.

@lordargent:

A friend used to code for banking systems. They would test the code as well as they could and then run it in parallel with the old system for six months to look for bugs. I was told that this was standard in the industry.