To the Editor:
It is about time that someone put a check on the abuses of the credit card industry.
Not that long ago, I remember receiving letters two or three times a week offering “pre-approved” credit cards at low or no beginning interest rates, no matter how bad or good my financial condition was at the time.
Too many were lured into signing up whether or not they could later make the payments. It clearly echoes the practice of luring obviously unqualified buyers into buying a new home and then their not being able to meet the payments later.
While credit card users may eventually pay dearly for their use of credit, many users do not realize, too, that merchants pay interchange fees to the credit card companies for allowing customers to use the cards for purchases. These fees are either absorbed and consequently reduce profits or are passed on to customers by increasing the prices of the goods they sell.
Claude M. Gruener
Austin, Tex., May 20, 2009
Note from KBJ: Does anyone even know what the word "responsibility" means anymore? Are we going from no-fault divorce and no-fault automobile insurance to no-fault life?
