Word: mastercard
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...easy to think of America's two major credit card companies as competitors in a classic tradition: Yankees vs. Dodgers, Coke vs. Pepsi, Visa vs. MasterCard. But according to the Department of Justice, that sheen of rivalry may be little more than a carefully maintained illusion. After examining Visa and MasterCard's overwhelming presence in the American financial market (the companies issue roughly 75 percent of the country's credit cards and enlist about 7,000 banks), DOJ lawyers have brought monopoly charges against the credit peddlers. In a case opening Monday in New York's District Court, the Justice...
...party flyers. These handouts are to raves what graffiti art is to hip-hop and psychedelic posters were to the acid rock of the '70s. They give vision to rave's sounds. Sometimes--much like rappers' sampling old songs--they appropriate corporate logos with ironic visual twists. The MasterCard logo becomes "MasterRave," or Rice Krispies becomes "Rave Krisp E's." Other flyers employ 3-D images and wild metallic hues that draw inspiration from sci-fi films, anime, even the rounded, flower-power imagery of the Summer of Love. "In a lot of ways it's one of the most...
DIED. WILLIAM BOYLE, 88, visionary banker who developed the first bank-issued credit card, the Franklin Charge Account Plan, in 1951, paving the way for Visa and MasterCard and hastening a new age of consumer spending; in Garden City...
...industry bankrolled studies to back its claims. In February 1998 the WEFA Group, a Philadelphia-based economics consulting firm, released a report contending that personal bankruptcies cost each American household an average of $400 a year. Paid for by MasterCard International and Visa USA, the WEFA study put the overall cost to the economy at $44 billion in 1997. Said Mark Lauritano, a WEFA senior vice president: "Clearly, the American consumer is facing a significant burden as the result of bankruptcy, both through higher prices and increased interest rates." The dollar-cost claims--which were disingenuous at best--would become...
Other Visa- and MasterCard-financed studies asserted that many whose debts are discharged in bankruptcy could actually pay some of their bills but don't. The Credit Research Center at Georgetown University estimated that 25% of the debtors who file in Chapter 7 could repay more than 30% of their nonhousing debt over five years. The study warned that the continuing rise in bankruptcy filings would increase the cost of credit. It concluded: "Our results imply that the bankruptcy system itself is contributing to these rising costs by offering the opportunity to wipe out debt with a single signature...