{"id":672400,"date":"2010-02-22T23:57:12","date_gmt":"2010-02-23T04:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"tag:donnelly.house.gov,2010:\/\/4.1364"},"modified":"2010-02-22T23:57:12","modified_gmt":"2010-02-23T04:57:12","slug":"congressman-donnelly-announces-start-of-credit-card-reforms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/672400","title":{"rendered":"Congressman Donnelly Announces Start of Credit Card Reforms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Washington, D.C.<\/b> &ndash; Today, Congressman Joe Donnelly announced the start of common-sense consumer protections against unfair credit card practices through the <i>CARD Act<\/i>, H.R. 627.&nbsp; Known as the Credit Cardholder&rsquo;s Bill of Rights, H.R. 627 passed the House with Donnelly&rsquo;s support and was signed into law in May 2009.&nbsp; The bill prohibits unfair interest rate increases and requires credit card companies to provide consumers with unprecedented levels of transparency in their card agreements.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;For too long, many credit card companies have used confusing and unfair practices that have contributed to the debt that many families now carry,&rdquo; said Congressman Donnelly.&nbsp; &ldquo;The common-sense rules starting today will provide middle class families with the tools they need to make informed decisions about their finances.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Starting today, credit card companies are required to give 45 days&rsquo; notice before increasing interest rates, changing certain fees, or making other important changes to the terms of a consumer&rsquo;s card. Also, credit card companies are prohibited from increasing interest rates on existing balances.&nbsp; Any interest rate increase can only be applied to new purchases, meaning cardholders now have the option to close out an account when interest rates are unexpectedly raised.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>Additional changes credit cardholders can expect include:<br \/>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Credit card companies can no longer charge interest on debts paid on time.<\/li>\n<li>Interest rate hikes on existing balances are prohibited, and can only be applied to future purchases.<\/li>\n<li>Credit card bills must provide information to clearly explain how long it will take to pay off the balance by making only minimum payments.<\/li>\n<li>Credit card companies will be restricted from allowing over-the-limit transactions without informing you.<\/li>\n<li>Any changes to a cardholder&rsquo;s billing will require a statement explaining those changes at least 21 days before the payment is due.<br \/>&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">###<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, D.C. &ndash; Today, Congressman Joe Donnelly announced the start of common-sense consumer protections against unfair credit card practices through the CARD Act, H.R. 627.&nbsp; Known as the Credit Cardholder&rsquo;s Bill of Rights, H.R. 627 passed the House with Donnelly&rsquo;s support and was signed into law in May 2009.&nbsp; The bill prohibits unfair interest rate [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2629,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4821],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-672400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-2OVa","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2629"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672400\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}