Posted on 02/01/2009 10:35:27 PM PST by Lorianne
Here's the latest reason to hate credit card companies: Shop at Wal-Mart, obviously a sign of financial distress, and your credit limit gets lowered. Hallelujah!
This is from American Express, which has now decided to hunker down and simply lie about their habit of doing this. Compare and contrast the following news accounts. When Kevin Johnson returned from his honeymoon last year he got a letter from Amex saying, “Other customers who have used their card at establishments where you recently shopped have a poor repayment history with American Express.” Here's what they told the Atlanta Journal Constitution about this in December:
“We’re just doing this to manage risk,” said Lisa A. Gonzalez, an American Express spokeswoman. She declined to say which retailers or mortgage companies are associated with consumers with higher default rates. She said it makes sense to examine these factors because “customers who have loans outstanding with certain lenders or customers who make transactions with certain merchants tend to have a higher proportion of credit issues or a higher probability of default.”
And here's what they told the New York Times this week:
“The letters were wrong to imply we were looking at specific merchants,” said Susan Korchak, a company spokeswoman....Now, the company says that there never was such a list. So what about the language in its letters to cardholders, which calls out particular “establishments” where cardholders had shopped, I asked. Well, apparently that was all just a big misunderstanding, despite the number of people who must have been in on drafting the notes in the first place.
So: a month ago monitoring your transactions with "certain merchants" was a legitimate way of managing risk. This month the story is that they were never doing it in the first place. You betcha.
Bastards. I really hate these guys and their entire sleazy industry. More here. Kevin Johnson's website is here.
Mother Jones is a communist propaganda rag,
and they hate Walmart,
and I wouldn’t doubt if they have a chip on their shoulder about Amex.
Asked ‘em to stop sending such retardation; they said they couldn’t help it.
Sounds like Blue States and their Congressmen.
My Debit Card is Master Card and it is insured the same as a Credit Card.
I would never use a credit card I like my money and if I want it I save for it.
Raised on Dave Ramsey I am.
It might be "insured" but I never want to write a check or try to withdraw from an ATM and find there is no money there...insured or not.
Some people are proud of the fact that they only thing they know about a particular subject is limited to what they read about it at Free Republic.
Yes, exactly so.
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