By now, almost everyone has heard of the Credit CARD Act of 2009. This bill, which just went into effect, finally created some basic consumer protections for credit card borrowers. While these companies are doing their best to find new and creative ways to stick it to their customers, the bill stopped some of the worst abuses, and made sure that credit card companies could no longer treat college students, whom they courted aggressively, differently from the rest of the population.

There is a provision in the bill that many people have not heard about, however, and it could be a real help to student journalists, student government, and anyone else who is trying to make sure that colleges, credit card companies, and alumni associations are not taking advantage of students. This provision, championed by Pennsylvania Rep. Patrick Murphy, requires schools to disclose agreements that they have with credit card companies allowing them to market to students. It also allows any individual to request this information.

Some of these agreements have been heavily criticized for violating student trust and privacy. Some of the common and controversial conditions of these deals include:

• Selling student contact information to credit card companies
• Co-branding credit and debit cards
• Making school IDs double as debit cards
• Marketing cards on campus
• Kickbacks (the school/alumni association earns money based on accounts opened or the volume of charges)
• Access to campus, coaches, and even student athletes
• Secrecy – the agreements have often not been subject to open records laws

Often, the agreements contain little or no negotiated terms that would benefit students, like better borrower protections or lower rates. There are now some restrictions on how credit cards can be marketed on campus, but we fully expect the credit card companies to be as creative in finding ways to get around these restrictions as they have with other protections in the Credit CARD Act.

Rep. Murphy is encouraging students to take advantage of this new rule, and shed light upon colleges’ agreements with the credit card industry. They published a sample letter (included below) to make the process quick and painless. We are compiling these agreements and plan to make them available to the public, so we would greatly appreciate it if you sent a copy of any materials that you get to:

Email: pdelatorre@americanprogress.org

Snail Mail:

Pedro de la Torre III
The Center for American Progress
1333 H St. NW 1st Floor
Washington, DC 20005

If you need any help sending the request or getting a response from your institution, let us know!

Requesting Information: 4 Simple Steps:

1. Find the contact information for your college president’s office, as well as your college’s government affairs department. This information should be listed on your school’s website
2. Fill in the relevant information in the sample letter below
3. Send the message (email, fax, or snail mail should be fine) to your college president’s office, and Cc the college’s government affairs office. Make sure to send us a copy!
4. Follow up with a phone call if you haven’t heard back after two business days (email/fax) or one week (snail mail) to verify that they received your message.

Sample Request Letter (via Rep. Murphy):

Dear President,

I am writing to inquire about any and all business or marketing agreements that [name of school] may have with any and all credit card companies.

Under the Truth in Lending Act §140(f)(1), implemented by Regulation Z § 226.57(b), as an institution of higher education you are required by law to publicly disclose any and all credit card marketing contracts or other agreements made with card issuers or creditors for the purposes of marketing credit cards to students.

Under this regulation, individuals are entitled, upon request and within a reasonable time frame, to all contract information between your institution and any card issuer or creditor, including all unredacted contract terms.  I am hereby requesting this information.  Additionally, I am requesting all information pertaining to how any funds attained as a result of these contracts are allocated within the [name of school].

Please provide me with this information as soon as possible.  If this information is available on your website, please let me know immediately so I can access it.  If this information is only available in hard copy, please let me know the expedited time frame in which I can expect it.  Thank you for your assistance with this matter.

Sincerely,

Concerned Citizen

Cc: Government Affairs Contact

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/menetekel/ / CC BY 2.0