Text 2364, 97 rader
Skriven 2005-08-09 04:44:14 av Greg Sears (3:633/104)
     Kommentar till en text av WAYNE CHIRNSIDE
Ärende: F unny
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SEND US YOUR MONEY AND WE'LL SEND YOU OURS
By Bill Hall, Lewiston, Idaho Tribune, February 8, 1999

I always feel when I get one of those credit cards in the mail from some
distant bank, offering me $80,000 worth of credit, that I have been
deeply misunderstood.

I wouldn't do business with a bank that would loan me $80,000 without
ever having met me.  I feel flattered, but boy do they have me wrong.

Now I have been insulted from the opposite direction of the credit card
world.  Some outfit in Richmond, Va., has just sent me a Visa card with
a credit limit of $300.  I gather they do not agree with the $80,000
credit card companies.  They wouldn't trust me any farther than they
could throw a loan shark enforcement goon.  It's worth the gamble to
them that I might repay 300 bucks but they're not going to stretch their
luck any farther than that.

Actually, it's even more insulting.  They won't send me the credit card
with the $300 limit until I first send them $49 for something called a
"security account."  In other words, if I open a $49 savings account
with them, they will open a $300 charge account for me.

That means they don't even see me as worth a $300 risk.  They're
sticking their neck out only $251 worth for me.

How humiliating.  I have held the same job for 33 years.  I have paid my
bills.  And now, here at the pinnacle of my earning power and the height
of my charm, they're willing to extend me 251 of their lousy dollars if
I first send them 49 of mine.  They're even ready to wait for it:

"If you don't have $49 right now, you can take advantage of our easy
installment plan.  Just send in as much money as you can, and we'll open
your security account.  Send in additional funds later, and when your
security account balance totals $49, we'll issue your Visa."

This is a pre-pay "installment plan" where you send them money ahead of
getting anything in return.  They think someone dumb enough to take them
up on that might not ever get the full $49 together.  Meanwhile, they
get those little pockets of money from people without extending any real
credit.

And if I should, by some miracle, scrape together the whole $49, they
only have to risk $251 of their money to play the odds that the high
interest rate will more than offset losses to the people they have
trouble collecting from.

This is somewhat the opposite of a normal credit card from a bank with a
branch in the community.  I went over my limit on one of those credit
cards one time some years ago.  The bank sent me a stern letter
informing me I had exceeded my limit -- along with notice that my limit
was being raised.

Furthermore, I was given to understand, if I ever exceeded my new limit
I would run the risk of being punished with an even higher credit
limit.  The more irresponsible with credit you appear to be, the more
credit they will extend you.

I learned my lesson.  I never exceeded my limit again.  But I am being
punished anyway.  Every year or so, they send me a new higher limit.  I
guess they mean it as a warning of what they can do to me:  They can
hang the possibility of great credit card debt over my head.

But that is rational by comparison with the credit card companies that
routinely, out of the blue, send me their cards with huge credit
limits.  And these aren't local banks.  These are banks a continent
away.  They don't know me.  Yet they see me as person with vast
resources at my command for repaying them huge loans.  They apparently
have me confused with somebody in Palm Springs.

But I am also misunderstood by the credit card company with the chicken
limit of $251.  That gets me a bit wrong in the opposite direction.  I
think they have me confused with somebody in Bosnia.

The partial explanation may be in the names.  The high-roller cards come
to me off mailing lists that use my business name.  The chicken mailing
came to me with my nickname and middle initial -- "Bill D. Hall."  I
think that's the name on one of those plastic gadget catalogues we get
that offer sequined beer openers and artificial silk pillows that say
"Foxy Grandma" on them.

On the other hand, there are days when I get a little crazy and have
dreams of taking that $251 credit card, grabbing my foxy grandma by the
hand and going out on the town for one whale of a party.

Could somebody loan me $49?


   _\|/  @@@@
     @~ / 00 \   Cheers,
     | ( \__/ )  I C E-man.
      \ \__U_/

... I C E-man ... does the work of 3 Men...  Moe, Larry & Curly  ,-0

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