The Big Card Game

As we head into the holiday season, read the fine print on your next credit card statement. Even the best cardholders can expect to see interest rates go up, credit lines get cut, and a variety of new fees tacked on.

With a faltering economy and a new law that may limit the credit card industry’s profitability, banks are struggling to make money, and consumers are paying the price. New York Times columnist Joe Nocera observed that adding more fees is often a credit card company’s first response to a dip in profits.

Nocera is one of the people interviewed in The Card Game, an investigative documentary that screens tonight at 9pm on PBS. Longtime investigative journalist and Frontline correspondent Lowell Bergman has produced award-winning stories on organized crime, international arms dealing, drug trafficking, and famously, the tobacco industry’s deceptive practices, which was told in the 1999 film The Insider.

In The Card Game, Bergman speaks with industry insiders, lobbyists, politicians and consumer advocates about how to reform the consumer loan industry. And he joins us now as part of NHPR's “working it out” series.

New York Times: A Squeeze on Customers Ahead of New Rules

(Photo by Baptiste Franchina via Flickr/Creative Commons)