While American consumers have been struggling, credit card companies have been enjoying a field day. Not only are most of them receiving federal bailout money, but they've been jacking up interest rates (there were rate hikes on nearly 25 percent of accounts between 2007 and 2008) and switching the terms of agreements with consumers. Why the rush to gouge consumers in the depths of a recession? In July 2010, the Federal Reserve will impose new, consumer-friendly disclosure and administrative restrictions on the credit card industry. Scrambling to get ahead of the deadline, the card companies have been raising interest rates, slicing credit lines and, in too many cases, simply dumping customers with little rhyme or reason. Defaults and delinquencies have skyrocketed - and consumers are livid. It's off the charts in terms of their ire about paying higher interest rates, particularly when their money, as they see it, is being given to the banks to prop them up," said Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough. Speier's staff says her office has been "flooded" with calls from furious constituents. Speier is ... a co-sponsor of HR627, better known as "The Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights." The bill - which has the support of the Obama administration - would prevent card issuers from raising interest rates without advance notice and end the practice of "double-cycle billing" so that consumers do not have to pay interest on debts they've already paid.