Released: December 01, 2006

Senator Levin pledges to fight credit card companies

Source: Faith Bremner, Gannett News Service

Michigan Sen. Carl Levin vowed Thursday to crack down on what he called abusive credit card company practices when Democrats take control of the Senate next year.

Levin, incoming chairman of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said he will hold hearings and work with the Senate Banking Committee to prod regulators and introduce legislation to rein in credit card companies.

Educating consumers about the pitfalls of credit cards will not be enough, Levin said during a policy discussion on the credit card industry at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. New laws and regulations need to be passed, he said.

Americans’ use of credit cards has exploded in the past 20 years. In 1980, consumers used 100 million credit cards to purchase $69 billion in goods and services. Last year they used 700 million cards to buy $1.8 trillion in goods and services, according to a report released in October by the Government Accountability Office.

Credit card company practices have led to tens of millions of American families falling deeply into debt, Levin said. The average American household owed $5,100 in credit card debt in 2004, he said.

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