New rules are on the way to regulate credit card issuers. While the House of Representatives shaped a new bill to reign in issuers (see Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights), the Senate ran out of time and failed to address it. The Federal Reserve, on a parallel track, has devised a set of rule changes in the same spirit as the Bill that stalled in the Senate. On the down side, the rules don't take effect until July, 2010, giving issuers another year and a half to bleed consumers under the current lax regulations.

The common thread between the two initiatives is broad consensus that issuers have spiraled out of control over the last few years in their exploitation of consumers. Referring to the Fed actions, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said the new rules "are a good first step, but they don't prevent a number of unfair, deceptive and predatory practices that saddle many American families with crushing debt."

In the chaos of the financial industry meltdown, you may have missed the news that a Bill was passed by the House, and now awaits Senate approval.  Dubbed the "Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights", the law would update the Truth In Lending Act with provisions specifically aimed at curtailing the exploitive practices card issues have developed over the years.  One of the Bill's main sponsors, Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) describes the main provisions of the Bill on her web site, including the following provisions:

I just realized that my United Airlines credit card from Chase uses the double-cycle billing method, one of the schemes currently under scrutiny by Congress. I had wondered about this earlier in the year, whenI started using this card as a "pay off every month" card for everyday purchases.  It seemed to take a number of months before I was no longer free of interest fees.  I found this clause in the "Grace Period" section of my cardholder agreement: