Congress accelerating Credit CARD Act (and its AOR impact)

So, looks like the tactics employed by credit card issuers to cut lines, raise rates, and change terms before the Credit CARD Act goes into effect in 2010 may have backfired:

http://www.credit.com/news/credit-debt/2009-11-06/regulations-fo...

Given the legislation which ordinarily would've gone into efffect in Feb 2010 would go into effect once Obama signs the legislation:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/06/...

And the remaining provisions would be in effect within 30-45 days (couldn't find the current proposed date for the entire bill to be enacted)

Would this mean any balances held on cards with promotion AOR rates between say 0 and 3.9% be locked in until that balance is paid off? Or does it simply mean the current non-promotional interest rate couldn't be hiked after the promotional period ended?

If so, this would be a very accidental and generous benefit bestowed upon FW.

My reading is whatever the rate is when the legislation is signed by Obama is the rate that balance will carry until it's paid off, while there would be different terms for new charges.

I don't think it will affect promotional rates. My understanding is that they just cannot arbitrarily change the regular interest rate on a previous balance. The CC companies have known about these regulations going into effect for a while. For instance, I have a card that I got in March of this year that is 0% through May of '10. While I would love for the existing balance to stay at 0% indefinately on that card, I doubt they would still be making low intro-APR offers if they knew that any existing balance would be locked in at 0%. Basically, I can't see the CC companies voluntarily accepting all the risk without the ability to gain anything.

I'd still say "no" in that they are not arbitrarily raising interest rates, but rather doing exactly what they said they would do in their contract with the cardholder.

Certainly. If one does not investigate what the post-into-APR is, then they are at fault. As far as equal bargaining power, one can always not enter into the contract. If I were to offer a service to you and named my introductory price and my standard price which would take effect after a specified period of time, you and I have equal bargaining power. I could refuse to budge on myprce, which you may well believe to be too high, and you could walk away.

Some may say "but people need credit so they can't just walk away". You may well "need" the service I offer. However, That does not make our hypothetical negotiation unfair to either party.

Its possible you can close the cards and lock in the 0 percent rate.... Sone cc issuers just might do this to avoid the wrath of regulators

But i think this only applies to rate changes that normally require a change in terms notice.... A reversion of promo rate to standard rates does not require a change in terms notice, and variable rate cards dont need to sebd a change in terms notice when the underlying index adjusts

Does anyone know when the universal default clause is going away? There was much publicity and news coverage about this but nowhere in the target implementation dates I could find when this particular practice will be a thing of the past. Anyone?