FROM CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
March 20, 2008

Blue Island resident Marvin Weatherspoon thought it would help him financially when he decided to take advantage of a 4.25 percent credit card interest rate offer by consolidating $12,000 of home repair bills on a new Bank of America credit card in 2000.

He was wrong. Since then, the rate has skyrocketed, he said, first to 19.99 percent and now to 24.99 percent, while his monthly payment has spiked from $130 to $342. He was told the interest rate was raised because his credit score changed and he co-signed on a loan, he said.

 
Read the full article at Chicago Sun-Times

FROM BOSTON HERALD
March 20, 2008

Attorney General Martha Coakley and U.S. Reps. Barney Frank and Michael Capuano got an earful yesterday from ordinary citizens fed up with a financial system they say is constantly hitting them with high bank and credit-card fees while not protecting them from identity-theft predators.

FROM THE SOMERVILLE JOURNAL
March 19, 2008

Congressman Barney Frank took aim today at the compensation of executives atop major financial institutions across America, recommending a change in corporate structure to ensure that the leaders of big companies feel the pain of risky decisions gone awry.

"It's not just that they make too much money by any rational standard," he said, adding that when their business decisions fail, they still receive major payouts, and "if the risk pays off" they get paid even more. "It's a one-way street. So they get an incentive to take risks."

Frank, joined by U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano and Attorney General Martha Coakley at a town hall-style forum hosted by SEIU Local 615, heard tales about identity theft, credit card company bureaucracy and subprime lending from some of the consumers they are working to protect.

Read the full article at Wicked Local Somerville 

FROM THE WASHINGTON INDEPENDENT
March 14, 2008

They came to the nation’s capital this week from as far away as Denver, Chicago and Niagara Falls—five people who’d had tough experiences with their credit cards and were asked to share those tales with a House panel. Instead, they ran headfirst into the buzz-saw of Washington politics when the panel’s Republicans insisted the visitors allow their lenders to discuss their financial histories publicly—in any forum, at any time.

Read the full article at the Washington Independent