Posted on 07/08/2009 3:13:08 PM PDT by JoeProBono
With credit card defaults rising, some companies are looking for reasons to cut your plastic. To make these decisions, banks rely on data about what you buy, where, and the company you keep. Stacey Vanek-Smith reports.
Not all that long ago credit-card companies were looking for reasons to give us credit. As we all know now, it didn't take much to get a shiny new piece of plastic in your wallet. But with credit-card defaults rising, those companies have started looking for reasons to take some of that credit away. To help them figure out how, banks are compiling thousands of bits of data, like what you buy, where you buy it, sometimes even the company you keep. As Marketplace's Stacey Vanek-Smith tell us, your credit card is watching you.
So, two guys walk into a bar, have a few drinks and split the bill on their credit cards. One guy's unemployed and in serious debt. The other has a job and pays all his bills on time. The joke is actually on both of them. Those drinks may have just cost them their credit....
The industry has developed hooks such as the ones you describe and some of them are quite abusive if not predatory. I don't like them any more than you do.
As an item in interstate commerce those things are certainly subject to regulation. In that regard we're closer to agreement. But to legislate “reasonable profit” and set arbitrary caps on interest rates and fees (the things in the federally required disclosure chart presented with the offer), I draw the line short of that.
You may have fought commies, but you also adapted some of their nanny state mentality. What you’ve said is that it can be hard to leave a credit card company. I suppose it can be at certain times, but no one forces you to stick with them for 40 years. Plus, there are plenty of people who never used credit in their lives.
We will have to agree to disagree I think...
I think a grown man should be responsible for his own actions, including the contracts that he enters into. I guess we just see things very differently.
Please don't mischaracterize my view as an endorsment for communism. All I am saying is there should be a legal limit to the amount of interest that banks can charge. Thats all I am saying. High interest creates a trap and the banks know it.
Thats why the Bible restrained interest. The Almighty knew that people are predators and unmerciful.
God was involved in high finance, eh? What rate did he list?
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