II 109th CONGRESS 1st Session S. 603 IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES March 11, 2005 Ms. Landrieu (for herself, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Baucus, Mrs. Lincoln, and Mr. Shelby) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs A BILL To amend the Consumer Credit Protection Act to assure meaningful disclosures of the terms of rental-purchase agreements, including disclosures of all costs to consumers under such agreements, to provide certain substantive rights to consumers under such agreements, and for other purposes.

1.

Short title

This Act may be cited as the Consumer Rental-Purchase Agreement Act of 2005.

2.

Findings and declaration of purposes

(a)

Findings

Congress finds that— (1) the rental-purchase industry provides a service that meets and satisfies the demands of many consumers; (2) each year, approximately 2,300,000 United States households enter into rental-purchase transactions, and over a 5-year period, approximately 4,900,000 United States households will do so; (3) competition among the various firms engaged in the extension of rental-purchase transactions would be strengthened by informed use of rental-purchase transactions; and (4) the informed use of rental-purchase transactions results from an awareness of the cost thereof by consumers. (b)

Purposes

The purposes of this Act are to assure the availability of rental-purchase transactions; and to assure simple, meaningful, and consistent disclosure of rental-purchase terms so that consumers will be able to more readily compare the available rental-purchase terms and avoid uninformed use of rental-purchase transactions, and to protect consumers against unfair rental-purchase practices.

3.

Consumer Credit Protection Act

The Consumer Credit Protection Act (15 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the following new title: .