Ending Credit Card Ripoffs: Priceless

Until today, it was perfectly legal for credit card companies to profit by tricking people into paying late and then tripling the interest rate on their balances.

Not anymore.

The Credit CARD Act goes into effect today and includes this and other protections from abusive practices the banks have used to rip us off. It also offers college students additional special protections. Click here to read what's in it for you.

A few years ago we launched our Truth About Credit campaign to research the problem of student credit card debt and to help students navigate the credit card system.

Students have an average of almost $3,000 in credit card debt when they graduate college. We use credit cards to pay for textbooks, transportation, and even tuition. Banks have used aggressive marketing tactics and abusive terms and conditions to trap us into deep credit card debt. According to Inside Higher Ed, the new law "Includes a set of changes aimed at protecting young consumers -- and in some cases college students specifically -- from excessive credit card debt."  U.S. News and World Report explains that young consumers are "coveted" by banks and credit card companies.

It was the outcry of students like you that passed this law, and the banks aren't happy about it - this is the first time in 40 years any law opposed by credit card companies has passed!

Read more here, and help spread the word.

Fast Trains Are Cool

The Obama administration just distributed $8 billion nationwide for high speed rail.

We've got to keep up the momentum for more and better public transportation and high speed rail across the United States.

Add your name in support of our 21st century transportation principles: http://studentpirgs.org/action/21st-century-transit

Having high-speed rail connecting all the major cities throughout the country would help our economy by providing thousands of sustainable jobs, reduce carbon emissions that cause global warming, clear up highway congestion, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and improve our quality of life.

It's going to take a long-term commitment from our local and national leaders to plan and fund a national rail system. As we rebuild our transportation system, let's make sure we do it right.

Get involved on your campus! Sign up to volunteer today.

Highlights from the White House Climate Forum

A handful of PIRG students attended last Wednesday's forum at the White House on global warming and clean energy. The forum gave young people a chance to speak directly to administration officials, including Ken Salazar (Secretary of the Interior), Hilda Solis (Secretary of Labor), Steven Chu (Secretary of Energy), Lisa Jackson (EPA Administrator), and Nancy Sutley (chair of the White House's Council on Environmental Quality).

You can check out coverage of the event, including this New York Times blog post which interviews CALPIRG student leader Jenn Engstrom, as well as the White House's own videos of the event.

UO Student Sits Down with Senators, Discuss Consumer Protection

Portland - Oregon’s Senator Jeff Merkley and Connecticut U.S. Senator Chris Dodd held a roundtable discussion today with OSPIRG consumer advocate Matt Wallace, University of Oregon student Dave Zahn, and Oregonians affected by the financial crisis, to discuss ways to protect consumers.

One of those affected Oregonians was U of O Junior Dave Zahn, who talked with the Senators about his personal experience with one of the “Too Big to Fail” Banks.

David chose his bank because of their advertised 'Free Checking' accounts. Unbeknownst to him, the bank had signed him up for one of their interest bearing, premium accounts, charging him $6 a month to earn interest on big balances that, as a college student working nights, he simply didn't have.

“That's not a lot, but I don't have a lot of money,” said David. “And that adds up.”

David also signed up for his bank's 'Keep the Change' Program, which meant that all of his debit card transactions would be rounded up to the nearest dollar, and the remainder automatically deposited into a savings account. Unfortunately, his bank did not consider the money in savings when Dave overdrew his account for some small purchases. Instead, when Dave overdrew, they charged him $35 per transaction, instead of taking the money that had been automatically deposited to his savings account. Oregon households paid more than $180 on average in overdraft fees last year, even higher among young people.

“I don't want to get a $3 loan to buy a cup of coffee if it's going to cost me $35. I'd rather just pay for it some other way,” said David. Oregonians paid an estimated $44 million in overdraft fees in 2008.

While some large banks in Oregon have announced changes that in the future will present consumers with the choice about whether or not to enroll in these programs, even if those changes were announced today many Oregonians would be left in the cold.

Dodd has proposed, and Merkley supports, streamlining consumer-focused oversight of financial institutions into a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency that will end abusive financial practices. The CFPA will end predatory mortgage lending practices, credit card abuses and other faults in the financial system that have helped lead to the financial crisis.

Dodd chairs the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, of which Merkley is a member.

OSPIRG Applauds the House's Historic Investment in Student Aid

Statement of Chris Lindstrom, Higher Education Program Director on the Passage of H.R. 3221

WASHINGTON, Sept. 17 – Christine Lindstrom, U.S. PIRG Higher Education Program Director, released the following statement on the passage of the higher education bill authored by Chairman George Miller (D-CA), chair of the U.S. House Education and Labor committee,  which passed by a vote of 253-171:

“U.S. PIRG praises the U.S. House of Representatives for passing H.R. 3221 - the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009.  Federal aid programs have failed to keep pace with the financial realities of family incomes and college costs, placing an excessive burden on families of modest means and hindering student opportunity.

“This historic investment in student aid profoundly increases the benefits of federal student aid programs.  In particular, this legislation ensures that the Pell grant increases each year in accordance with the cost of living - instilling confidence in college financing for students of modest means for years to come.  In addition, H.R. 3221 will significantly open the doors of community college to students across the nation seeking to attain higher education.

“This legislation helps renew the promise of student aid programs for the tens of millions of students who rely on grants, loans, and access to community college to achieve a college education. We look forward to working with the Senate, and in conference committee to further strengthen this bill."

Oregon Attorney General Visits SOU Campus

OSPIRG student leaders met and spoke with Oregon State Attorney General John Kroger during his visit to the Southern Oregon University campus. Kroger wrote the forward to the Oregon Renters' Rights Handbook, which was written and published by OSPIRG. View an online copy of the Oregon Renters' Rights Handbook here.

President Signs Credit Card Bill

President Obama recently signed into law strong legislation, called the “Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act”, that will halt the most egregious abuses by the credit card industry. This is a big victory for students and all consumers.

This is a big victory for students and all consumers! We've been working on this issue for a while now – working on campus to educate students and others about bad credit card practices, plus the report we issued last year, The Credit Card Trap.

For too long, owning a credit card company has been a license to steal. Over the last few years, the banks increased their use of abusive tactics, such as changing due dates so they could trick consumers into paying late. Worse, they charged a double whammy for paying late - a high late fee first and then tripled interest rates of 36% APR or more. They also started charging good customers higher rates because they supposedly paid some other creditor late (this is called "universal default"). And when that wasn’t enough, they started raising the rates of good customers for no reason at all.

These rip-offs have finally caught up with them. Gouging everyone, even good customers who paid on time, caused thousands and thousands of people who just want a fair deal to contact Congress and the Federal Reserve.

The CARD bill doesn't fix everything, but it does eliminate a lot of unfair practices, including:

Credit card issuers could not extend credit to consumers under the age of 21 unless the person has an independent means to repay the loan, or has a cosigner with such ability. That’s the same way other adults are treated. Consumers under the age of 21 could choose whether to receive credit card solicitations.

Restricts credit card companies from giving away free gifts on or near campus and requires disclosure of credit card company exclusive marketing arrangements with colleges.

Unjustified and retroactive interest charges. Card companies could not hike interest rates retroactively on balances accrued before a rate increase takes effect (with minor exceptions) unless the cardholder is more than 60 days late in paying a bill. If such interest rate increases occur, they must lower the rate after six months of on-time payments. Card companies would not be able to raise interest rates in the first year after a card account is opened.

Universal default on existing balances. Credit card issuers could not increase a cardholder's interest rate on existing balances based on negative information about other bills unrelated to their credit card.

Excessive and growing penalty fees. Penalty fees would have to be reasonable and proportional to the late or over-limit violation. Card issuers could not charge over-limit fees unless the cardholder has agreed to allow over-limit transactions.

Unfair billing practices. Card companies could not charge interest on any portion of a balance that is paid by the due date.

Pay-to-Pay. Card companies could not charge customers a fee to pay their bill, except for expedited service provided by a service representative.

The new law also reins in the deceptive marketing of freecreditreport.com—those commercials may be funny, but the credit reports aren’t free.

Passage of this historic credit card reform legislation will stop big credit card companies - many of which are benefiting from TARP funds - from cheating Americans out of their hard-earned money.

Victory for U of Oregon Compost Campaign and OSPIRG!

On Tuesday, January 20, OSPIRG won its campaign to provide permanent funding for an on campus composting program at the University of Oregon.  The campaign was started last year by chapter senior Joel Durr. The funding committee reversed its initial decision to cut the program after OSPIRG and its coalition partners gathered over 1,300 student signatures, 14 coalition partners (all told representing over 3000 students), an OSPIRG report, and a veto threat from the student government President if the committee opted not to fund the program.  They jam packed a hearing built for 25 with over 60 students and supporters dawning all their campaign props and t-shirts. The decision was unanimous after initial opponents stated that "this clearly is a mandate from the students."

With a joint-coalition between the U of Oregon recycling program and OSPIRG we were able to make this pilot program a fully funded campus-wide success.

From the Oregon Daily Emerald, U of Oregon’s daily campus newspaper, “Campus Recycling created the compost program in spring 2008 after the ASUO Senate granted funding for one year of the service. Since then, it has collected one ton of compostable material every month, according to statistics compiled by Campus Recycling. However, because composting was not part of the Campus Recycling's regular budget, it would not have been included this year without a substantial increase for the department.

Campus Recycling employs roughly 40 students, making it one of the largest student employers on campus. However, Kaplan said that without the increases she was asking for, the program would have to cut five to 10 student jobs because of increases in the state's minimum wage and decreases in the amount of money available from the federal government to work study students.”

Clearly this is a huge victory for Oregon PIRG students, student volunteers, and all of OSPIRG. From the sheer volume of interest to keeping crucial student jobs, OSPIRG continues to work hard both on campus and on a national scale.

Congress passes the National Textbooks Bill

Textbook costs can be a barrier to an affordable education.  The average student spends about $900 per year, and textbook prices increase faster than inflation. To address this problem, Congress included a set of strong policies in The Higher Education Reauthorization and College Opportunity Act of 2008.

The textbooks section has three main provisions:

1. Requires publishers to disclose textbook pricing and revision information to faculty
2. Requires publishers to offer textbooks and supplemental materials “unbundled” (separately)
3. Asks colleges to provide the list of assigned textbooks (incl. ISBNs and prices) for each course when students are registering for classes.

To learn more visit the Make Textbooks Affordable website.

OSPIRG Releases 23rd Annual 'Trouble in Toyland' Report

Hazardous toys are still sold in stores across the country, despite a new law overhauling the nation’s product safety watchdog agency, according to the 23rd annual toy safety survey released today by the OSPIRG Public Interest Research Group (OSPIRG). The group also warned that the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is taking actions to delay one of the new law’s toxic toy protections indefinitely.

“While the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act is a major step forward, many of its protections won’t be in effect until 2009, so it’s still Buyer Beware for this shopping season,” said OSPIRG’s Kendal Lenton. “Worse, last week the CPSC told companies that they could continue to sell toys with toxic phthalate chemicals until they ran out of them, instead of complying with the law’s clear prohibition against selling them after February 10th.”

According to the most recent data from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), toy-related injuries sent more than 80,000 children under the age of five to emergency rooms in 2007. Eighteen children died from toy-related injuries that year.

For 23 years, the OSPIRG Trouble in Toyland report has offered safety guidelines for purchasing toys for small children and provides examples of toys currently on store shelves that pose potential safety hazards.

Because of the passage of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act in August 2008, OSPIRG’s research this year focused on new standards for toxic toy dangers enacted by the law, using laboratory tests to identify toys that contain lead and toxic phthalates.

Among the findings of the 2008 Trouble In Toyland:

Lead in Toys and Children’s Jewelry: Children exposed to lead can suffer lowered IQ, delayed mental and physical development and even death.  In 2006, a four year old died of lead poisoning after he swallowed a bracelet charm that contained 99% lead.  OSPIRG researchers went to just a few stores and easily found three children’s toys or jewelry containing high levels of lead or lead paint. One piece of jewelry we found was 45% lead by weight, or more than 750 times current CPSC action levels.

“Congress took important steps to address the serious health risks that lead poses to children, yet consumers can still find lead-laden children’s jewelry and lead painted toys on store shelves until the protections take effect next year,” continued Lenton.

Toxic Phthalates: Numerous scientists have documented the potential health effects of exposure to phthalates in the womb or at crucial stages of development, including (but not limited to) reproductive defects, premature delivery, early onset puberty, and lower sperm counts. Effective February 2009, the CPSIA bans toys for children that contain concentrations more than 0.1% of a toxic chemical used in plastics called phthalates. OSPIRG found toys that contained concentrations of phthalates up to 40%.

“Congress clearly intended that the new law would also stop the sale of toys containing toxic phthalates in February, but last week’s CPSC legal opinion told manufacturers that can keep selling the remaining millions of hazardous toys until they run out, which could take years,” said Lenton. “Congress gave America’s littlest consumers the gift of safety—they should not let the CPSC take it away.”

Lenton noted that OSPIRG’S DC office and Congressional champions intended to take every possible action to overturn the CPSC decision and restore the February 2009 ban on sale of toxic phthalate-laden toys.

Choking Hazards: In 1979, the CPSC banned the sale of toys for children younger than three if they contain small parts.  The 1994 Child Safety Protection Act required an explicit prominent choke hazard warning on toys with small parts for children aged between three and six. OSPIRG found toys with small parts for children under six without the required explicit choke hazard warning.

“The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act gave the CPSC the tools it needs to do a better job for America’s littlest consumers,” said Lenton. “Now it’s up to Congress to fully fund them and for the Consumer Product Safety Commission to vigorously carry out its new responsibilities.”

Lenton called on Congress and the CPSC to do the following:

• CPSC should vigorously enforce the CPSIA’s strong protection against lead and reverse its recent decision allowing continued sale of toxic phthalates in children’s products. CPSC must also move swiftly to implement all rules required under the new law; must ensure that new third-party testing programs meet the new law’s standards; and, must also move quickly to implement the new law’s publicly-accessible hazards database requirement.
  

• Congress and the Administration should work to overhaul U.S. toxics policy to begin to assess the thousands of chemicals currently on the market for which little or inadequate health data are available, and to require manufacturers to ensure that they are using the least hazardous chemicals possible.
  

• Congress should fully fund the CPSC’s increased budget authorizations for the next five fiscal years, and conduct vigorous oversight over the implementation of the new law.
  

Lenton also reminded parents that the toy list in the OSPIRG report is only a sampling of the potential hazards on store shelves, and urged consumers to shop with a copy of PIRG’s Tips for Toy Safety, included in the report and at www.toysafety.net.

“Shoppers should remember to examine all toys carefully for hidden dangers before you make a purchase this holiday season,” Lenton concluded.

To read the full report, click here

New York Times endorses our Truth About Credit project

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/18/opinion/18sat2.html

Editorial: The College Credit Card Trap

Published: October 17, 2008

Add this to the list of the country's financial woes: Credit card companies are aggressively targeting college students, many of whom are naïve about money matters and vulnerable to predatory offers that can get them permanently mired in debt.

According to an eye-opening survey by the United States Public Interest Research Group, or U.S. PIRG, which is an advocacy organization, some students reported receiving hundreds of credit card offers in a year. The report also described how companies lure cash-starved students with gifts of clothing and free food. In one flagrant case in Ohio, students who showed up for the food were required to fill out credit card applications before they could eat.

A half-dozen states have placed restrictions on how credit cards can be marketed at public colleges. Congress is considering sensible bills that would restrict the amount of credit and the number of cards that students could be offered. Lawmakers should also focus on the lucrative and often secret deals that universities and their alumni associations regularly cut with credit card companies.

Those deals — which resemble the now outlawed student loan kickback deals — often grant companies the exclusive right to market to a college’s students. In some cases, the colleges get a cut of what the students spend, which makes the school a partner in the plundering of young peoples’ meager assets.

Congress must insist that these deals be made public and universities and alumni groups must insist that students be given fair deals from credit card companies.

With financing from the Ford Foundation, U.S. PIRG has begun a national campaign urging schools to adopt some common-sense principles that would help shield students from credit card marketers and financial ruin.

The group calls on universities to stop selling the names and contact information of currently enrolled students to credit card marketers. It also says that schools should ban marketers from using gifts to entice students to sign up for credit cards, and it urges schools to do more to educate students on managing debt responsibly.

Most importantly, the group calls on schools that still decide to cut deals to only do business with credit card companies that steer clear of commonly used but unscrupulous credit card terms that take advantage of students. That means an end to hidden fees or unreasonable penalties, including universal default, under which interest rates go up when the customer fails to pay a bill not related to the credit card account.

Schools need to reform their credit card practices. If they don’t move quickly, lawmakers must do it for them.

New Report Exposes Deceptive Credit Card Practices on Campus

OSPIRG chapters released the "Campus Credit Card Trap" report, which outlined the unfair marketing practices of the credit industry. Students overwhelmingly support limits on campus credit card marketing, according to the results of the nationwide USPIRG survey of more than 1500 students at 40 colleges in 14 states.

The average student receives nearly 5 credit card offers a month and nearly two in three students reported that they had at least one credit card. Fifty-five percent of cardholding students said they used their card for day-to-day expenses. Reflecting escalating college costs, 55 percent said they charge their books and nearly one-quarter said they pay their tuition with a card. On average, freshmen had a balance of $1,301 and seniors had more than twice that, $2,623.

Credit cards are marketed to students using free gifts and introductory teaser rates. The use of aggressive marketing techniques obscures students' ability to be scrutinizing consumers when considering a credit card contract.  Seventy six percent of students reported stopping at tables on campus to apply for credit cards, and nearly one-third were offered a free gift to sign up.

Check out the Washington Post article printed April 13th 2008

Learn more at: truthaboutcredit.org

470 lbs. of food gathered at World Peace Day Celebration in Bend

Bend's first ONE World Peace Day event was a runaway success.  Held at the Domino Room on Friday, Nov. 17, the celebration was attended by hundreds of students and community members, and raised 470 lbs of food to benefit the Neighbor Impact Food Bank.

Over 1000 Professors Join Effort to Make Textbooks Affordable

One thousand professors from over 300 colleges in all 50 states released a statement declaring their preference for high-quality, affordable textbooks, including open textbooks, over expensive commercial textbooks.

Open textbooks are high quality open-access textbooks reviewed and written by academics that can be used online at no cost and printed for a small cost.  Open textbooks are already used at some of the nation’s most prestigious institutions, like Harvard, Caltech and Yale.

Textbooks cost students an average of $900 per year, which is a quarter of tuition at an average four-year public university and nearly three-quarters of tuition at a community college, according to the GAO. Research conducted by The Student PIRGs identifies publisher tactics as the primary cause of escalating prices.  Bundling textbooks with unnecessary supplements forces students to purchase items they do not need; unnecessary new editions undermine the used book market; and withholding critical price information keeps faculty in the dark.

“As faculty members, our top priority is to choose the textbook that is best for our students.  We share concerns about affordability, and face similar frustrations with publisher practices,” said Sandra Schroeder, Chair of the American Federation of Teachers Higher Education Program and Policy Council.  “Open textbooks and other affordable options, when appropriate for a course, are a win-win for everyone.”

Here are some examples of open textbooks:

Introduction to Economic Analysis

A First Course in Linear Algebra

Introduction to Physical Oceanography

Check out a great front-page article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

This Earth Day, Students Turn Up the Heat on Presidential Candidates to Detail Plans on Top Youth Issues