Wednesday, May 20, 2009

You Are Hereby Notified

How are we expected to re-start the economy when banks and creditors are cutting the spending capabilities of consumers? This is a representative example of what these corporations are doing wholesale to customers, new and old:

Dear John Doe,

We are contacting you to be sure you do not have any surprises when you use your card. In this difficult economic environment, we all need to make choices about how we spend and save. For us, that means carefully reviewing the spending and debt profiles of our Cardmembers - and making some difficult decisions. Unfortunately, we have had to make the decision to lower the credit limit on your account listed above.

Sincerely,
Account Services


There is absolutely no reason for the drastic, and unprecedented need for, cutting of credit limits, especially to those consumers who are never late on a payment, pay more than the minimum due, and/or have a good debt-to-credit ratio in general. And
there is no sympathy for these corporate entities who continue to play the victim role, pandering to a faux collective "tough economic situation," rather than taking the blame for getting us into the troubles in the first place. Certainly, it must really affect their balance sheets to lower credit limits; indeed, it does affect ours, the consumer, who once again is legitimately victimized by such actions.

When banks like Bank of America and Citi insist upon more financial assistance from the government, they need to remember who it is footing the bill - the very consumers who have just had their credit amount and spending capabilities reduced. The next time any of these companies do ask for more taxpayer money - because they have and will again - I hope the government has the spine to tell them where they can go. And that they can wait until it freezes over. Because the question still remains - how are we expected to re-start the economy when banks and creditors are cutting the spending capabilities of the very consumers who are expected to drive it?

©2009 Steve Sagarra

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