By Bruce Edwards

A Poultney man who always paid his bill on time saw the interest rate on his credit card jump from 8 percent to 29 percent; a man from Rupert tells the story of his daughter in college receiving a 0 percent offer on balance transfers only to find out after reading the fine print that the interest rate on everyday purchases is 20 percent; and a Rutland dairy farmer complained about hidden fees and penalties after he paid off his credit card in full.

Those are three of the close to 1,000 e-mail messages the office of Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., received during the weekend detailing alleged abuses by the nation's credit card companies.

The same day President Barack Obama met with representatives of the credit card industry last Friday, Sanders sent out an e-mail alert asking consumers across the country to sound off on the credit card industry.

He didn't have long to wait.

By Monday, Sanders said his office had received nearly 900 e-mails from consumers upset about the behavior of their credit card companies.

While Obama has called for full disclosure and transparency by the banks and credit card companies, Sanders has proposed legislation that would, with few exceptions, cap the interest rate on all consumer loans, including credit cards, at 15 percent.

Sanders said Monday there is no doubt people want Congress to take action to reel in the questionable practices of the industry.

"People are very, very angry that at the same time they are spending hundreds of billions of dollars bailing out collapsing Wall Street firms, the same giant financial institutions are responding by raising their interest rates significantly," Sanders said. "So you're adding insult to injury."

He said even consumers who always paid their credit card bills on time are being "punished severely" with huge hikes in interest rate.

Sanders said the Obama administration's plan to tackle the behavior of credit card companies doesn't go far enough. He said there are bills in the House and Senate that would cap interest rates on credit cards and consumer loans at 15 percent. He argued that if credit unions can live with a maximum 15 percent interest rate, so can banks.

But the head of the Vermont Bankers Association said comparing banks and credit unions, which are considered nonprofit businesses, isn't a fair comparison.

"If Congress wants to entertain eliminating the tax obligations for financial institutions, banks, and then have a discussion about interest rates, we can certainly do that," said Chris D'Elia, president of the Vermont Bankers Association.

But D'Elia also said a discussion on credit card practices is one worth having.

He said "there are a number of our banks who could agree there are probably some challenging credit card practices out there that should be addressed."

D'Elia said capping interest rates could lead to tighter credit, which could deny credit for those with less than stellar credit ratings.

But Sanders isn't buying that argument.

"The answer is, it's the absurdity of their recklessness, their greed and their illegal behavior (that) caused their collapse," he said. "The taxpayers have had to bail them out and now that they're in serious trouble, what's happening is the credit card holders have also (had) to bail them out."