Over the last week, we've received numerous phone calls from Kohl's, the department store we occasionally shop at.  We last received a call last December when my wife's account was overdue.  But we know we're current on the account, so we did not answer the phone.  We figured it must be a telemarketing campaign, especially since they never left a message.  Finally, curiosity got the best of my wife, and she answered the phone last night.  Well, it seems they were just reminding us that this month's bill is due in a few days, and they offered the service of paying over the phone.  My wife found out there is a $10 charge for pay-by-phone, so she declined and let them know she'd pay over the web in a day or two.

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."

Discover Card wins the award for the most rediculous check-writing offer of the year.  I got the offer over the summer, and terms were this:  write a check against my Discover card account, and get 4 months of zero percent interest, for a mere 4% check-writing fee.  That amounts to one-third of a year, with 4% up front, equating to a 12% APR with interest paid completely up front.  Wow!  That is one horrible offer, and its sad to think some consumers actually fall for this "0% interest offer".  You'd have to be very desperate, or not very perceptive to take such a rediculous offer.