Over the Limit and Rate-jacking

One of the editorials in today's New York Times - titled "Over the Limit" - discusses Obama's recent meeting with credit card execs and suggests that if he's serious about pushing through reform of the credit card industry that "he could pressure Congress to end some of the industry’s worst tricks right now."

The Times concludes by focusing on the over-limit fee - the practice of card issuers charging a fee if a consumer exceeds their credit limit - and suggest consumers should be given the choice of a "hard or soft" (my language) limit on their credit card accounts.

In a related article titled "Sleeping as Your Debt Piles Up", Jim Dwyer writes about arbitrary increases in credit card interest rates - called "rate-jacking" - one of the most provocative techniques used by credit card issuers.

On CreditCards.com, Connie Prater provides a sample "rate-jack" opt-out letter that cardholders can use with some issuers to reject interest rate hiikes.