Chris Dodd

For too long, credit card companies made profits by charging consumers outrageous fees, or raising rates whenever they felt like it.

That argument is baloney, that argument, and, frankly, the argument now that we are going to do away with free checking and other things.

It is a relatively small number of people, and they are people, obviously--I will not say 'obviously,' but primarily people who are in difficulty.

Shouldn't we today in the 21st century... have responsible people at a responsible regulatory body making these kinds of decisions.

A Consumer Financial Protection Agency would be very important to keep this kind of abusive practice from getting out of hand.

This ought to be delegated to a responsible regulatory body to provide the kind of protections.

It seems to me if someone is overdrawn by $500, or $250, having an overdraft fee that would somehow be proportional to the amount of the overdraft would be more reasonable to me.

Yes. And so had you been notified more promptly, you would have dealt with it.

Fee-based overdraft lending traps consumers in astronomically expensive debt and deprives families of money that they need to meet their basic needs.

Overdraft protection loses its meaning if consumers are at greater risk with that protection than without it.

But even if the technology were readily available at a reasonable cost, overdraft coverage fees should still be reasonable and proportional.

So it was 6 days after they actually took notice of it that they notified you?

I am glad my Senator, Chris Dodd, is doing something about it.

Our job on the Banking Committee is to make sure that regular folks get a fair deal from their banks.

I am angry now in a sense that they took advantage of that request in here.

93 percent of all overdraft fees are paid by 14 percent of account holders.

That is not a deterrent. That is not a service. That is a debt trap.

Last week, the Federal Reserve, to its great credit, announced that they will require banks to get a consumer's consent before enrolling them in an overdraft coverage program.

If they wanted to deter overdrafting, they would deny the transactions on debit cards at the ATM.

That is interesting.

Today, we meet to discuss another abusive practice--misleading overdraft programs that encourage consumers to overdraw their accounts then slam them with a high fee.

It seems to me it is----

My concern is that if we give a choice in a static environment, where I opened an account 2 years ago and I opted into this thing and I had no idea that I would be incurring this fee, that is the problem now.

When a loved one goes off to serve in the armed forces, their family shares the burden.

The Obama administration has recently committed to ending homelessness among veterans within 5 years, and I commend that commitment.