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To help Americans reduce their debt, Kerry is proposing to cut credit card fees and rates, and put limits on below-prime or zero-interest loans, which Kerry said often hurt consumers when the rates rise or the principals come due. He also wants lenders to better disclose their policies for raising rates.
He described how credit card companies can increase interest rates up to 29 percent in some cases just for one late payment. "So all of a sudden, people get caught in a trap, the debt trap," he said.
At the Daly City event, Lori Guy, a 35-year-old high-tech worker from San Jose, was held up as an example by Kerry as a victim of bad credit card policies.
She told the crowd how her employer, a large semiconductor manufacturer whom she would not identify, cut her salary after she moved West in 2000 to take a job. Her credit card bills piled up and she got socked with late payments, but had no place to turn until she finally got back on her feet.
She blamed her company's outsourcing of jobs overseas for the cuts in salaries and she had left many in the crowd believing she had been laid off.
In an interview later, however, Guy said she is still employed by the company and after two merit raises in the past year now makes more money than she ever had there.
"I just want people to know there was no place to turn when I got in trouble," she said.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I guess you object to lowering credit card rates because you're just a big fan of usury, eh trav?