Today I started a new Active Rain Group, and I want to invite Everyone to join.
The group is called Credit Card Revolt, and the name basically says it all. This group is a call to action, and a forum for support, to get everyone to fight back against the oppresion that the major credit card companies have imposed on America.
Congress has said that they will begin changing the rules that allow credit card companies the free reign to terrorize consumers that they have enjoyed for so long. Have you noticed, there is no sense of urgency on their part to do so. In the meantime, the credit card companies are doing what they please, as they please. Arbitrarily increasing interest rates, reducing credit limits. Punishing responsible credit users, to cover their losses from delinquencies and charge offs. Ruining peoples credit histories in the name of profit.
The purpose of the Credit Card Revolt is to take back the power over our own lives. Right now, our lives are immeasurably controlled by FICO scores, which are largely driven by credit card use. Our credit history, available credit to debt ratios, available credit amounts and so on. The effect of one credit card company lowering your credit limit has a cascading effect. First, your debt to available credit ratio increases, lowering your score. Your lower score triggers other credit companies to review your credit, possibly lowering your limit as well, increasing your interest rate, or both. When the interest rate is increased, your minimum payment usually goes up, making it harder to make the payments, and increasing the time required to pay off the debt.
I could continue in this vein, and I am sure that many of you have experiences that can relate to this kind of mis-treatment. How did we get here in the first place?
Madison Avenue sold it to us. Using credit cards makes us smarter, sexier, better looking, modern, all around better people. Remember the Visa ads, where everyone is moving in synchronicity, until some dodo pulls out cash to make his purchase? We could see that we had become part of the futuristic cashless society, and now we had better join or get out of the way.
No one mentioned that one day the credit card company might decide that, even though you have only used about 50% of your credit limit, they can call you up, tell you they think you should make an extra payment of two or three thousand dollars. Or just as suddenly, invalidate your card for further purchases without warning. If you think this is nuts, you are right. If you think it cannot happen, well, it happened to me.
Well, I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!
From what I hear, most of you are mad as hell too. And you don't have to take it anymore either! There is strength in numbers. We can take action. We need to share ideas, and take steps to begin a fundamental change to release this stranglehold that the credit card companies have over our lives.
The first step that I have taken is to simply stop using credit cards, period! It's not easy, and not everyone can take this step, at least not as a first step. But if more of us, and enough of us do so, it will have an effect on the way credit companies do business. They are a service business, but the only ones being served by them is themselves. Now, don't worry that the economy will collapse by not using credit cards. I still spend money, but I don't use credit cards. I use many of the available alternatives: cash, debit card, checks, e-checks and so on.
Long term, I envision that eventually, enough consumers refusing to use credit cards under the current terms, will force the companies to create a better product that consumers will want to use, or go out of business. It may sound ridiculous to say so now, but as the movement grows, and the voices grow louder, change is inevitable. That's what a revolution can accomplish.
So again, I emplore you: please join the Credit Card Revolt, and share your horror stories, your triumphs, and your support with the rest of us. Together, we can make a difference. 
Comments(3)