Americans will be paying back the trillions in bailout money for decades. Bank of America and Chase are just two of the many banks which received bailout funds. Now, in what I like to call, the ultimate slap in the face, Bank of America and Chase, after receiving approximately $90,000,000,000.00 ($90 billion) in bailout money, are raising credit card fees on the American public. The same American public that provided them with the bailout money.
Likewise, three other credit card issuing banks are also raising interest rates. Citibank, HSBC and Capital One decided to raise interest rates for hundreds of thousands and maybe even millions of consumers. This type of practice raises several questions which need to be investigated and answered.
I believe that Congress should immediately investigate these banks to determine what is going on.
First: When was the decision to raise credit card fees on the American public made by each company? Was this decision made before they received the bailout money or after they received the bailout money? If it was before they made their pitch for the bailout money, did they disclose this to Congress? Did Congress put any strings on the money? Or did Congress drop the ball? Should we be looking to vote out members of Congress who have not been watching our dollars as vigilantly as they should be doing.
Second: It seems peculiar that each company has arbitrarily decided to raise fees in the worst economic climate since the Great Depression. I really don’t care about their bad decisions which were fueled by greed. Now is not the time to be hitting the middle class with higher fees. It also seems peculiar that they did so at or around the same time. Did they speak to one another prior to the raising of the fees.
Third: If this was a concerted effort by all of the credit card issuing banks, why hasn’t Congress taken immediate action to shut it down? I think we should be investigating the members of Congress for incompetence. What do you think?
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