Released: March 07, 2007

Chase chief to apologize for credit card overcharges

Source: Kathleen Day (Free Registration)

The chief executive of Chase Card Services, one of the nation’s five largest credit card issuers, will apologize to Congress today for charging a financially strapped customer $7,500 in interest charges and late fees on purchases of $3,200, the company said yesterday.

Richard J. Srednicki’s apology before the Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations will follow testimony by the customer, Ohio resident Wesley Wannemacher, on how Chase’s penalty fees and interest charges made his initial bill triple over six years.

The hearing by the subcommittee, part of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, will examine credit card industry practices that subcommittee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) says are “unfair” and “unethical.”

The hearing follows a Senate Banking Committee hearing in January on credit card industry practices. The two are part of a wider focus by the new Congress, now controlled by Democrats, on financial practices that affect rank-and-file consumers, including those in the home-lending and retirement-savings industries.

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