Why am I still getting cheap balance transfer offers?

[ohfrugalone]

I had a Chase/Amazon card that I opened up for free dollars on Amazon a few years back. They recently sent me a letter saying use the card for something or we will close it.

Then yesterday (or I looked at it yesterday) i got a transfer card offer for 0% - and was looking to see what bank was still sending out Credit Card offers. It said Juniper.com, which is Barclays. I am pretty sure it was all for $0/0%. It's already shredded.

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cute fuzzy bunny The steady rain of them seems to have dropped to a trickle, which I find to be a good thing. I was getting a little tired of having my mailbox stuffed with balance transfer checks, considering I have about 50 people walk by my mailbox every day. And they wont stop sending them, even if you ask. But now I get a couple a month. None for 0% or no fee, plus I dont have any balances to transfer. I did really enjoy the phone calls where they invited me to roll debt or transfer balances to the credit cards. I've never, ever seen a credit card company close an account due to low/no use. In fact, historically I've had a hard time getting them to close an account.

I had a Discover card that I didn't use for a couple years and they sent the "Sorry this isn't working out, we're cancelling your card" letter. A couple years later spouse got the same letter for her card.

For the last decade I've only used my USAA card for car rentals and an occasional tank of gas. They keep e-mailing offers for additional discounts on gas, which can't be helping either of us when we're spending less than $1000/year on that card. But for some reason they keep raising the credit limit every six months or so.

Fidelity has an affinity card that I've use for everything for the last five years. They insisted on sending a paper advertising bill every month until I signed up for online billing. So now the paper's stopped. For some reason that credit limit keeps going up too.

My daughter and I share a Citibank card (which is only used by her). That's been handled online from day one and we only get snail mail when they send a new card. She's built up a great history on it, but unfortunately it's only under my name. When she turns 18 I guess she'll have to get her own card with USAA or NFCU.

I kept asking all the companies to never call, to stop sending mail, and to stop sending balance transfer checks. They complied.

The worst junk mailers are the airlines. It must drive them nuts that we never redeem their "frequent" flyer miles, that we never redeem them for magazines, and that we never apply for their cards.

[samclem]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BLS53 Did you ever stop to consider that some people aren't as intelligent or as educated as you? Does that give some punk MBA from a multinational bank the right to devise financial instruments that the bank knows will eventually prove detrimental to the consumer?

Let's protect everyone from everything, even if some people get hurt.
In Ohio, we're having a big political fight over "payday lenders" and whether they should be legal. Sure, the service they offer allows some people to do things that are bad from an objective financial viewpoint. Still, the campaign against them is anything but honest, claiming they charge interest rates of over 200% APR, etc. (True, their rates are high when computed as an APR, but what would a $100 bank loan cost if you computed all the origination fees and paid it off in two weeks?). If these places close down, poor folks with no credit who are short a few bucks will do what? Go to a loan shark? Write bad checks and pay those fees? These lenders and borrowers are both acting in their perceived best interests. The state should leave them alone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BLS53 If you want to go off on a moral, elitist tone, you're way off the mark.

Stamp out moral toning!

[harley]

Quote:

Originally Posted by soupcxan By gosh you're right - personal responsibility is also a 1950's concept that is no longer wanted or needed. I look forward to the day when the government has to approve every loan agreement to make sure that you can afford it. Lord knows we can't expect people to do that for themselves.

Especially since the government has done such a WONDERFUL job dealing with finances and credit themselves. My granny used to say "don't do as I do, do as I say". I hear her say that every time I hear a government official talking about how Americans need to assume personal financial responsibility.

Quote:

Did you ever stop to consider that some people aren't as intelligent or as educated as you? Does that give some punk MBA from a multinational bank the right to devise financial instruments that the bank knows will eventually prove detrimental to the consumer? Meanwhile the same products, line the pockets of the banks and debt collection industry.

I can't disagree with you more. I believe there are a few individuals who don't or can't understand credit, but I think it's a very small group. And they need to have relatives or guardians watching over them. The huge majority of Americans are fully capable of managing credit and finances, they just refuse to do it. I guess I'd rather believe I live in a country full of lazy selfish people than a nation of retards. Sorry if I sound harsh, I've just seen so many people not doing what they KNOW is right that I get quite annoyed.

[lets-retire]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BLS53 That's the problem with you and many on this board. You assume a level playing field. You interpret "created equal" in the most literal sense. Did you ever stop to consider that some people aren't as intelligent or as educated as you? Does that give some punk MBA from a multinational bank the right to devise financial instruments that the bank knows will eventually prove detrimental to the consumer? Meanwhile the same products, line the pockets of the banks and debt collection industry. This isn't a 1950's lending environment. If you want to go off on a moral, elitist tone, you're way off the mark.

If the supposed predatory credit cards give the required disclosures they have their fees and initial interest rate disclosed in them. Since the consumer has been advised of the policies who's responsibility is it to ensure the card is right for the consumer? In my view of the world the consumer has the freedom to decide for themselves if the offer is right for them. In your world someone else is responsible. It can't be the issuer or the consumer. Maybe we can have the a parent of the consumer authorize it. But what if the parent is not very intelligent? Maybe we can have Congress mandate that an intelligence test is given before any offer of credit or we can have the local government develop an office to determine whether someone is smart enough to handle their credit wisely. All of these ideas sound good until you get to the point of who pays for all of the extra government, enforcement, and who is willing to suffer the invasion of government into their private lives.

When you consider a person's credit report IS their test of how a person can handle credit then the answer has to be personal responsibility. This has nothing to do with intelligence but it everything to do with responsibility. If someone is not responsible enough to handle a credit card they will not be able to obtain too many with more than a few hundred or a thousand dollars on it. I know of many extremely famous and wealthy people who have horrible credit.

Marquette--You are correct the bartender can be held civilly liable for serving an obviously intoxicated person. If a person is moderately intoxicated or even just buzzed, they are most likely still over the limit and can cause just as many problems. I've had a person prosecuted for DUI and they only blew a .02 (state law was .10). The person was convicted due to their actions.

[Independent]

In other news -

I got my quarterly credit union statement today. The enclosed flyer is promoting "rolling" your car loan to the CU. They are even offering cash - $100 if your loan is over $10,000 and $50 if your loan is over $5,000.

It looks like my little CU isn't caught in the credit crunch.

[Zoocat]

A couple of weeks ago the bank that holds my mortgage called me to offer an equity line of credit at an attractive rate, locked in for a while. The guy said it would be a good time to get it lined up even if I didn't need it right now. I suppose they have some very lucrative fees attached to it. Luckily I don't need it and happily turned it down.

Bankers are evil.