Number of Signatures: 250

Background: Credit Card companies have taken advantage of our preoccupation with the war in Afghanistan and Iraq by quietly increasing their maximum interest rates to as much as 27% APR. Further, should a person have more than one credit card and be late in making their payment, it has become permissable for them to ALL increase your interest rates to this 'bad boy' rate at the same time. This interest level was once the sole property of Pawn Shops, and has resulted in credit card companies becoming owners of banking chains across the country. It is time our government put an end to this gouging of the citizens of this country by eliminating or at the very least regulating this alarming business practice. More on this here.

This Petition States: We who sign this petition firmly believe that the practices described above are unfair and should be illegal, and must no longer go unchecked. We call upon the President and/or the Congress of the United States to propose legislation limiting the maximum allowable interest rate to be 21% for all causes, and further that this maximum rate should only be allowed to be activated by the single entity which has suffered no less than two late payments in any given year, as opposed to the present practice of all of a given user's credit card providers being allowed to enact this maximum rate at the same time if the user is late on any payment to any one credit card provider.