September 15, 2005 - If you are one of the 35 million Americans who only make minimum payments on your credit cards, you are going to be in for a rude surprise over the next year. The amount that you are going to be required to pay is going to double due to a little publicized federal lending rule that is about to go into effect. Unfortunately, most lenders don’t want you to know about the payment increases until after October 15th. That’s the date that new federal bankruptcy laws go into effect.