In the News Caveat Debtor

December 19, 2008

“These guys have figured out the best way to compete is to put a smiley face in your commercials ... and hire a team of MBA's to lay traps in the fine print.”
Elizabeth Warren, Harvard Law Professor, on the credit card industry

For the battered American consumer, a small holiday gift has arrived from the federal government: new protections for credit card users that the New York Times calls "the most sweeping clampdown on the credit card industry in decades." Do we need more regulation? Take a look at FRONTLINE's 2004 investigation, Secret History of the Credit Card, and decide for yourself. The brief excerpt on this page begins with correspondent Lowell Bergman talking to Robert McKinley, the head of an industry watchdog group called Cardweb.