By Erich Vieth on May 09th, 2009
Obama to credit card companies: stop ripping off American consumers
Could you ever imagine George W. Bush scolding credit card companies for “ripping off” and “abusing” American consumers? Barack Obama is proposing to do away with the fine print and to do away with profits that depend on misleading hard-working families by hiding fees and penalties. He wants to sign a bill reforming the industry by Memorial Day.
I could write a book on the crooked techniques these companies use. But it is not just credit card issuers. II recently became aware of the tactics used by a collection agency fraudulently portraying itself as a finance company. They work a scam in a partnership with several car dealerships and furniture stores were the customer is tricked into signing a lease-purchase agreement under the impression that they are signing a regular consumer loan. There are reports of this Texas based company engaging in blatant violations of civil and criminal law. Their collection practices appear to include criminal trespass, extortion. forced entry, and assault. In spite of this, some representatives of the company have stated that their customers are the criminals and that they are protecting their legal rights.
This appears to be the legacy of the deregulation of the finance industry under Bush, and part of the fraud that, according to Alan Greenspan, is not a problem.
These corrupt collections practices gave rise to the FDCPA (Fair Debt Collections Practices Act). Based on what I hear on the streets, there will never be enough lawyers to handle all of the abuses out there.
I don’t know that Greenspan has any direct responsibility for the way local operators are attempting these collections, but he has no where to hide regarding the lack of regulation over the banks and other financial organizations that recklessly engaged in profit-taking and are now getting rewarded for their arrogance with huge amounts of taxpayer money.