Are credit card companies trying to beat February 2010 consumer-protection law?
~Chicago Sun Times Peggy Sternal of Chicago’s Southwest Side had never been late paying her credit card bills, so she was shocked when the interest rates on two of her cards skyrocketed from single to double digits. “I received a notice with my bills — one said the rate was going to 14.99 percent from 4.99, and the other to 19.8 from 8.9 percent,” she said. Sternal, an administrative assistant with the Chicago Board of Elections, canceled those two cards but realized later that she had inadvertently hurt her credit rating. That’s because 45 percent of a FICO credit score is based on a credit-use ratio and the length of credit history. But she has benefited by keeping retailers’ credit cards that carry no interest charges as long as the charge is paid off within a certain period. The percentage increase that Sternal believed was most outrageous came from Discover Card. A Discover Financial Services spokeswoman said the company “recently re-balanced its portfolio” because of the increase
