Consumers Leery of Financial Regulations When Confronted With Costs

ConsumerAffairs.com (CA)
February 7, 2013
Huffman, Mark

It is almost the end of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's 60-day comment period for gathering consumer feedback on the 2009 CARD act. The public has until Feb. 19, 2013, to offer input on the law. The CFPB is attempting to determine how the measure has impacted consumers and the credit card industry. Earlier research by the bureau found that the CARD Act largely deterred the practice of raising interest rates on existing accounts and that it had substantially reduced consumer late fees and over-limit fees. A CreditDonkey.com survey of consumers recently tried to gauge support for potential regulations, especially for pre-paid cards. Among the responders, 83.6 percent supported the idea of requiring prepaid debit card issuers to limit consumer liability for unauthorized transactions, similar to protections provided for credit cards; but support fell to 51 percent when participants were informed that such regulation could result in higher fees. More than half of survey respondents supported a proposed rule that would make it easier for non-working spouses and partners to obtain credit cards, but only 30 percent said they would also accept higher fees or interest rates in exchange for that rule.
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