Word: mastercards
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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...
...they owe Bank One. The $5,537 they owe Chase Manhattan Bank. The $8,222 they owe MBNA America. The $4,925 they owe on their Citibank Preferred Visa card. The $6,838 they owe on their Discover card. The $6,458 they owe on their MasterCard. "People don't understand, unless they have a medically needy child, these kinds of circumstances," says Charles Trapp, 42, a mail carrier...
...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...
...Today, most consumers cannot go a single day without being bombarded, if not pummeled, by a plethora of credit card applications wherever they turn. Whether it is Visa, Mastercard, American Express or their pygmy cousin Discover, the opportunity for appropriation of unneeded material items is forever available to the American public. Unfortunately, in addition to snazzy new possessions, this "shop 'till you drop" mentality also brings with it the acquisition of unwanted and often irreversible debt...