Bill Clinton: “today I am introducing the Debit and Check Card Consumer Protection Act of 2006, an important piece of legislation in…”

“today I am introducing the Debit and Check Card Consumer Protection Act of 2006, an important piece of legislation in the battle against consumer fraud. Despite consumers' best efforts, debit and check card fraud is a serious problem making consumer liability an important issue. Unfortunately, current consumer protection laws do not adequately protect debit and check card holders from fraud. Over the last decade, debit and check card use has experienced double digit growth and now over 80 percent of American consumer households possess a debit or check card. This growth has outpaced that of credit cards and recent reports indicate that between 2001 and 2003 consumers made 42.5 billion transactions with debit cards, 2.3 billion more transactions than with credit cards. While debit and check card growth benefits the American economy, consumers continually face greater challenges to prevent and protect themselves from debit and check card fraud. Recent statistics show that in 2005, ATM/debit card fraud in the United States generated losses of $2.75 billion. During the same period, ATM fraud alone affected 3 million U.S. consumers. Despite these findings, debit and check card consumer liability protections under the law remain substandard as compared to credit cards.”