Randy Kotel is appalled by all the credit card offers his three teenage sons receive in the mail.

"I'm waiting for my dog to get one," he says.

Vonda Wilhoit, a nurse who lives in Aurora, says the interest rate on her Bank of America card surged past 20 percent, even though she was paying on time.

"I don't mind paying interest but it should be calculated fairly, not raised on a whim," she says.

Don Feltner, frequently on the road in his RV, says Capital One made it nearly impossible to pay his bill on time. He says he received the bill only a few days before it was due. When he tried to pay over the phone - he doesn't like to make transactions online - he says the company tried to charge him a $10 fee.

Delbert Boyer believes interest rates are often "deceptive and excessive." Usually he frowns upon the government getting involved, but he says "this problem needs tough, immediate, smart intervention." Boyer worries about his 18-year-old granddaughter who is managing her debt but has a "pocket full" of cards."

The stories go on and on.

Kotel, Wilhoit, Feltner and Boyer are among scores of Coloradans and more than 30,000 people across the nation who have weighed in on a plan aimed at cracking down on unfair credit card practices. Many complain of their rates being boosted arbitrarily and cite abusive tactics that keep them deep in debt.

One Estes Park man says his "fixed 4.99 percent" card increased to 9.99 percent. "Slam the door on these vultures," he says.

The Federal Reserve Board in May proposed rules seeking to protect consumers from unexpected increases in interest rates on outstanding balances.

Other reforms include requiring companies to give people a "reasonable amount of time" to make their payments and preventing the banks from applying all those payments to low-interest debt first.

The changes "are intended to establish a new baseline for fairness in how credit card plans operate," Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke says in a statement on the Web site outlining the plan.

"Consumers relying on credit cards should be better able to predict how their decisions and actions will affect their costs. At present, this is not always the case," he says.

The Federal Reserve has been deluged with letters in recent months and could see an even bigger wave in the final days of the comment period, which closes Aug. 4. The board will review the feedback and could finalize the rules by the end of the year.

A December 2000 proposal related to real estate brokers attracted a record 45,000 comments, says Federal Reserve spokeswoman Susan Stawick. The credit card issue has so far drawn 31,000 responses, she says.

The credit card companies have objected to the package of proposals, arguing that they would hurt consumers, leading to higher costs and less competition while reducing access to credit. The industry says it must be able to charge interest rates that reflect the risks.

Some consumers also think the new proposals are not such a smart idea. Dean Boyd, a 35-year veteran of the financial sector who now works in real estate lending, says he has never paid a "penny of interest" and argues that education and discipline are key.

"Government intervention is not the way to solve this," the Broomfield resident says.

Still, Boyd is easily outnumbered by people who would welcome an aggressive effort. Many of the critics have identified issues the Federal Reserve doesn't specifically address this time.

Kotel, whose boys are now 18, 16 and 13, believes the credit card companies' efforts to sign up children are over the top. "Kids are naive," the Centennial resident says. "Young people can get sucked in at an early age and can't say no."

Linda Schaer says she and her husband saw the interest rate on a Chase credit card soar to 32 percent from 22 percent after they went over the limit for the first time. She says Chase refused to budge even though the couple had used the card for several years and have a mortgage and car loan through the company.

Schaer, an administrative assistant at a Denver church, says "credit card companies are out of control." She and her husband closed their account rather than deal with the higher interest rate and are paying off a roughly $10,000 balance at the prior rate.

Feltner had this to say: "Stop it guys! I believe that credit card fees are way out of line and only the government can stop it."

James Paton and David Milstead take turns writing Up and Down 17th Street.