by Rella Ingram

Created on: January 29, 2009

A license to steal?! Credit card companies, mortgage companies, investment brokers, and insurance companies are beginning to see that a quick buck up front for them is costing the American people a lot more in the long run for funny banking rules. Funny banking rules? What is that? Simply put, it is the way that these companies have been allowed to legally rip off the American people while padding their pockets with your money.

Have you ever missed a credit card payment by a day and find that you are charged a late fee, which put you over your limit, then charged an over-the-limit fee, which made your finance charge increase from 9% to 24% because you broke one of those rules written somewhere in the fine print of your agreement? If this has happened to you, you are in good company. It has happened to a good number of others as well. There are also loop holes that also allow your beloved credit card companies to charge you finance charges on your account even if you paid your balance to zero. There has been much press these days on the facts about paying only the minimums on your accounts. If you had a $5,000 balance and paid the minimum payment each month, you will pay that off in approximately 30 years. These are only a few things that credit card companies can do to reach into your back pocket and reach for that extra dollar. Greed, is there anyone who has been more greedy than these companies? I'm sorry to say it, but, yes.

The real greed has been found in the mortgage industry. As a member of the financial industry, it sickened me to find that someone had been put into a $180,000 45 year Interest Only Balloon loan where at the end of the 45 years they owed $180,000 in one lump sum or lose the house. How is this legal? How is it right and ethical on any level? This is just one of the cases that has been uncovered by my office. It was done to get this poor family into a house that they could not afford, and one that they would never pay off. If they did not refinance this mortgage they would have paid on this house the majority if not all of their adult lives to only lose it in thier old age. I do not think Social Security would be enough to cover a $180,000 lump sum payment. If they had not saved this money in an investment of some kind (401K, 403b, etc.) this family would have to be ready to give up their longtime family home. This is greed at its worst. The sad thing is there are so many of these mortgages and those like them that it has played a major

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