Credit Card Offers Target Risky Borrowers Again

nytimes.com:

Credit card offers are surging again after a three-year slowdown, as banks seek to revive a business that brought them huge profits before the financial crisis wrecked the credit scores of so many Americans.

Read the whole story: nytimes.com

Comments

[goodmarina]

02:24 AM on 12/14/2010

Once upon a time, I used to believe that the system would work like it was supposed to.  I used to think that the public would be protected ... and that building good credit was a good thing.

I am not a fancy person that really understands all the intricacies of the financial structure, ratings and the big backroom dealings that take place.   But it took me this long to learn one thing: they do not care about me, my circumstances or my neighbors & communities circumstances.   

Even though these companies pretend as if the phrase Being Fair To The Consumer as something vile ... they forget that without us Consumers .. there's no them.  

But the greed continues ... 

I have decided that they can take their credit cards and loans and shove it where the sun doesn't shine.  They've pulled their last "good offer" over me and anyone I know.

I'd rather pay cash and live within my means than make these companies -- that are legally allowed to rob from people - wealthy.

[GreenKate]

01:51 PM on 12/18/2010

F&F!! Great post.

[Eileenla]

12:34 AM on 12/14/2010

Funny...I carry no debt beyond my mortgage, pay all credit card charges the month they're incurred, and yet recently had two of my cards cancelled because I was perceived as a bad credit risk due to a 3 year old dispute with Verizon over a $48 bill I've refused to pay. Doesn't seem to me to be a sign card companies are once again embracing risk!

[GreenKate]

01:54 PM on 12/18/2010

Eileenla, thanks for pointing this out. You can do everything right, but if you stand up and fight overcharges they all band together. The credit rating and scoring system is rife with injustice but most American sheeple seem unfazed by this fact.

[fortressfountain]

07:09 PM on 12/13/2010

Why isn't Boo hoo crying about this?

[goodmarina]

01:53 AM on 12/14/2010

say what you really mean ... in a grown-up format - people do not use 'code words' to describe people - they simply say it ; )

[WhatchaTalkinBoutWillis]

02:02 AM on 12/14/2010

Lol! GoodMarina, I'm glad I fanned ya. Truly enjoying your comments.... :)

[LinkSync]

06:08 PM on 12/13/2010

The "logic" of big business is very much like the "logic" of the Military.
In the end nobody wins and a lot of people are dead or damaged including the big business or Military.

What should be done is a foreclosure forgivness act that kicks in when people are re-employed and resets their credit ratings back to pre-meltdown scores.
This just makes sense.
People who got really hurt by extended unemployment might now have a chance to climb back up but geuss what? No credit. No car. No work. No fair!
Allow their scores to reset as well as their minimum payments and so on, so they can take advantage of low interest loans to do consolidations, which they have to do since the genius BASTARDS on the hill in BOTH PARTIES decided that credit card debt would from now on be SECURED DEBT, which means if you don't pay when you do finally get a job, the bank will reach into your work with a LIEN on your paycheck to make sure you still have no chance.

People that just walked away from their homes for financial considerations should get nothing as they presumably have it all worked out to be to their advantage to not have credit or standing.

[Velvettazz]

04:24 PM on 12/13/2010

The Feds should go after these sonsofbitches with a machete!

[LinkSync]

06:09 PM on 12/13/2010

The Feds work for THEM...

[doneflyin]

04:08 PM on 12/13/2010

Yeah, built up that bubble again. That's the ticket. Getcha another bailout when things go boom.

[LinkSync]

06:12 PM on 12/13/2010

The bailout is continuing as you read.
Right now our Government STILL has over 6 TRILLION in gaurantees and low or no interest loans out to the financials.
Which is WAY better than the 23 TRILLION in obligations we had out there in Jan 2009.

Freddy and Fanny are gobling up the poison pills as fast as they can and are being floated at need, as much as needed also. What to the tune of around 60 billion a quater or so I think it is?
Don;t quote that as I am not certain but I know its something like that as they eat the foreclosures to protect the TOO BIG TO FAIL interests (Banks).

[doneflyin]

10:30 PM on 12/13/2010

Oh Good Lord! I had no idea it was that bad. And we are now going to add another trillion.
A trillion here, a trillion there. Now we're talkin' some serious money.

We're doomed.

[cccoyote]

03:33 PM on 12/13/2010

As Elizabeth Warren stated, the credit card reform was no more than fence posts without a fence, in other words, a total public dog and pony show with no real regulation.

[Olderandwiser55]

10:44 PM on 12/13/2010

Actually, she said "[The Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act] is a good first step but it isn't enough alone," said Warren on a conference call with reporters hosted by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. "The credit card industry and the entire consumer credit industry is broken. We need an agency, a cop on the beat that is flexible and responsive."

But even in your example, a fence is no good without fenceposts

[cccoyote]

12:24 AM on 12/14/2010

Actually she made the fence reference in several interviews.

“The problem with the approach . . . is that it’s like putting fence posts on an open prairie."
Interview with Bill Maher

"Credit card reform—It's like we put up ten fence posts in a wide open prairie. If you smack straight into one, you really will get hurt ..."
Interview with Charlie Rose

"That is exactly why we have to have a consumer agency. We can't go through this business where you wreck ten fence posts out on the prairie and the banks try to run one way or the other. That's not the kind of relationship we should have with the financial services, it's not good for the consumers, it's not good for the economy, it's not good for the business."
Interview with John King

[GreenKate]

02:02 PM on 12/18/2010

So let's quit bickering and improve on it then. This is the trouble with the US consumer. We are so divided politically that we cannot do even those things that would enhance justice and greatly improve the lives of most Americans.

[Anna Laurie Watkins]

03:10 PM on 12/13/2010

When our leaders of industry and government are crooks,why do they think we should behave responsibly?Lol peoples attitudes towards debt are changing for the worst i fear.

[LinkSync]

06:17 PM on 12/13/2010

They have changed the world into one big giant ENRON scheme and want us all to remain calm and good and keep eating all the crap they roll down the hill on us.

There is no honor or even honesty left among the Global Business Persons and almost none left among American Corporate People either.

We should be upset when somebody rips off a bank or a store to take more Chinese made CRAP home?

Not me.
I clap for 'em and hope they don;t get caught 'cause the Banksters Lawmen hate nothing worse than a thief.
LOL

What a WICKED and unseemly bunch of Monkey Minded creatures we are.

Merry Christmas and Wilkom to Das Republik!

[PathofTotality]

02:24 PM on 12/13/2010

I have one CC through the local Credit Union and it's used for emergencies. The interest rate is ~12% (maybe a little less) with no annual fee. For all the pre-approved cards I used to get in the mail, none came close.

[JLD]

02:17 PM on 12/13/2010

Credit card companies don't care if the poor can pay the debt off. Once they offload into a CDO and sell it to the company managing your pension fund it's no longer their problem but yours.

[LinkSync]

06:19 PM on 12/13/2010

Just so.
And Dodd's supposed "reform" does nothing about CDOs or other "exotics" because his Repugnant Friends wrote the thing.

[GreenKate]

02:05 PM on 12/18/2010

A friend lost her job and BRIEFLY fell behind on her CC payment (only one card, low balance) and was charged $35 late fee each month. Now she is caught up and paying on time. Funny thing though, BofA just LOWERED her minimum payment without being asked, from $66 to $29. If she falls for this, her payoff will take forever.

[bluepond]

02:06 PM on 12/13/2010

People, for our own sakes, let's turn away from this evil financial cabal. Get somebody to take the "Kick me" sign off our backs, too.

[tinman1967]

01:57 PM on 12/13/2010

Credit card companies are providing a valuable service to these down on their luck people.

[LinkSync]

06:21 PM on 12/13/2010

Yes they are!

It is valuable to be forever enslaved to pay to the Bank any extra pennies you might have.

Very valuable.

I mean what other REASON could a person possibly have for living other than to be a wage slave eh?

It is our highest calling to be a good little consumtion machine, like a catipillar.

[insider9909]

01:38 PM on 12/13/2010

You may hate my guts, but when all of the CC companies doubled and tripled my rates last year, I told them to go fish and stopped paying them. Oh, they threatened me with dire consequences, but eventually just wrote off the debts. I'll get a call from a third party debt collector every once in a while, which I just ignore.

By the CC companies getting greedy, they made it impossible for me to survive and pay them at the same time. So pardon me if I have little sympathy for big credit card companies and banks. Beside, my tax money is paying for their billion dollar bonuses right now.

[tinman1967]

01:57 PM on 12/13/2010

You sound like the classic deadbeat.

[cats530]

04:06 PM on 12/13/2010

and you sound like the classic @$$

[doneflyin]

04:12 PM on 12/13/2010

No, insider did on the micro level what the banks do on the macro level. He just doesn't have a sugar daddy called the Federal Reserve where he could get a taxpayer funded bailout.

[LinkSync]

06:26 PM on 12/13/2010

Financial matters have not limits on litigation.
Unlike murder.

When you find good work again they will line up and attach liens on your paychecks just to make sure you are forever grateful to the for their value added services.

They can do this, and do do this, (my daughter is one victim) because a while back DemocRats and Repugnants got together and made credit card debt SECURED DEBT.

It didn't used to be but it is now and they are very good at hunting down their prey over time.

So be careful as they do truly SUCK pus from dead children all over the world.

[Riley74]

01:26 PM on 12/13/2010

"Again" implies they stopped doing it at one point.

[LinkSync]

06:28 PM on 12/13/2010

They did stop.
They had to, because of new restrictions on the amount of leverage they can do.
Once they got re-capitalized (with tax payer money) they can now continue to do whatever they want save for a few minor changes, but nothing of note as Warren has pointed out.

[abbadabba]

01:26 PM on 12/13/2010

That's because they can roll them into CDSs and make a bundle! That's all that's left for them to profit from. And that's where these huge profits are coming from . See Loiuse Story's story in the NYTs. They aren't banks, anymore, they are casinos. And they demand business folks and municipalities buy that garbage or deny them further lines of credit. So they are also gangsters.

See, you take those loans off your books, bundle them, sell them off and book the entire earnings anticipated as good NOW. Then they use that circus peanut money to fuel more wreckless lending. I can't beleive we would fall for that again. But we are.

In 1907, when they did the same thing, every state in the nation made "bucket shops" illegal. But in 1999 Phil Gramm made sure this new fangled bucket shop wouldn't be controlled by the states' laws. And the MERS "innovation" made it easier than taking candy from a baby. That's the state of affairs, today. It's 1907, all over again.

[doneflyin]

04:14 PM on 12/13/2010

Yes, and the end result will be the same.