-- Late payers, who miss deadlines or skip payments altogether, accumulating balances and incurring high interest charges and late fees.

The revolvers and late payers are the credit card industry's most lucrative customers. While I won't argue that lenders should be able to charge more if someone is a higher credit risk, many of the fees and penalty interest rates unfairly deepen people's debt.

Now that Congress has sent Obama a bill that is intended to rein in certain unfair credit card practices, it won't be long before the industry responds with new or old income-generating ways to make up for lost revenue.

Already the language from the lenders is pitting so-called "good" credit card users against "riskier" ones.

"Those who have managed their credit well and currently have very good credit card deals will find that card companies are limited in their ability to distinguish between them and those that have credit problems," Edward L. Yingling, president and chief executive of the American Bankers Association, said in a brief written statement following passage of the credit card legislation. "The result will be some subsidy from those that manage their credit well to those that have problems, affecting negatively the terms the former will receive."

Yingling added that the "new rules will limit the ability of card companies to price according to risk."

No, they won't. There's nothing in the law to prevent the companies from charging higher interest rates to irresponsible or riskier borrowers. What the industry is lamenting is that they won't be able to continue gouging lower- to middle-income cardholders. It means these people won't be subsidizing convenience users.

This change won't be easy for some, as evident from the following comment I received from a reader during a recent online discussion. The person wrote: "I am fortunate enough to be able to pay off my credit card bills in full every month and on time. I am concerned that, with the new legislation, my American Express annual fees will go up and I will get asked to pay annual fees on the MasterCard and Visa, both of which are now free."

No, those cards were never free.