{"id":11738,"date":"2010-02-11T20:00:26","date_gmt":"2010-02-12T00:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/?p=11738"},"modified":"2010-02-11T20:00:26","modified_gmt":"2010-02-12T00:00:26","slug":"what-is-up-with-this-anti-credit-card-rant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/what-is-up-with-this-anti-credit-card-rant\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is Up With This Anti-Credit Card Rant?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I like to think of myself as a pretty big consumer advocate.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I can and do call out banks on their outrageous credit card practices.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I strongly supported the CARD act and would have supported an even tougher law.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You know that someone is taking their feelings too far when even I start to roll my eyes.<\/p>\n

Credit Card Protester Takes Campaign To MSNBC<\/strong><\/p>\n

The story in the Huffington Post<\/a> wasn’t too bad, but watching the video was downright painful.\u00a0\u00a0 I don’t know who was worse, the protesting consumer or the sycophantic TV personality and his terrible questions.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Where do I begin?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For one, why would you protest credit cards at ATMs?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I have never, in my entire life, used a credit card at an ATM.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Check cards and debit cards, sure,\u00a0 but you get the worst possible rate when you withdraw cash with a credit card from an ATM.\u00a0\u00a0 Secondly, most of my credit cards come from banks who don’t have ATMs.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I suppose there might be an American Express ATM or a Capitol One ATM somewhere, but I haven’t seen it.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The stupid stickers that these people are putting up are, at best,\u00a0 a minor nuisance to remove for the people who service the machines.\u00a0\u00a0 At worst, they are probably just going to end up as\u00a0 litter in the parking lot.\u00a0\u00a0 Finally, the entire interview is devoid of any mention of the CARD act, which takes effect in just a few days!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 How could you possibly talk about this subject, at this moment in history, and not even mention CARD?<\/p>\n

What Does This Guy Want?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Amazingly,\u00a0 he is able to articulate five demands.\u00a0\u00a0 Let’s take a look:<\/p>\n

1)\u00a0 Print the interest rate on each card.<\/strong> I don’t know how this would work.\u00a0\u00a0 Do you get a new card if your rate goes down?\u00a0\u00a0 Do they cancel your card if you pay late and get kicked to a default rate?\u00a0 What if you have a promotional rate that is different from the regular rate? \u00a0 If you have so many cards, that you can’t remember what your rate is, maybe you need to have fewer cards.<\/p>\n

2)\u00a0 The contract should be less than one page.<\/strong> This might be his best idea, yet it would hardly make a difference compared to the meaningful regulations contained in the CARD act.<\/p>\n

3) Cap interest rates at 15%<\/strong> Fantastic idea, except that credit cards will only be issued to a small minority of people if this were to ever happened.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Why don’t we just make interest 0% as long as we are bending the laws of economics.<\/p>\n

4) Show transaction fees on sales receipts. Ethically, cash ers should pay 2% less.<\/strong> This is the worst idea ever.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Basically, he would like to shift transaction fees away from merchants to consumers.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Brilliant, because what we need now are additional fees tacked on to every transaction we make.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Merchants don’t have to accept credit cards, but they do because handling cash is more expensive and risky.<\/p>\n

5) Require online calculators so consumers can easily check statements for accuracy. <\/strong>I just don’t get this one.\u00a0\u00a0 I have never found a math error in a statement.\u00a0 Banks are failing consumers in many different ways, but math just isn’t one of them. \u00a0 There are plenty of calculators he can use if wants to check his bank’s math.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Many credit card companies will allow you to download your statements from their web site, or you could just cut and paste them into Excel and do your own calculations.\u00a0\u00a0 Personally, I have better things to do with my time than duplicate a 4th grader’s homework assignments.<\/p>\n

In Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have just about had it with all the phony populism going on today.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Congress passed and the President signed a credit card reform law that is pretty damn strong.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 They did it early last year, during a time of record low public opinion of the banks, and record high gains in Congress for the Democrats, the only party that would ever consider stronger regulation of the banking industry.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The worst part of the law is that it took so long to become effective. \u00a0\u00a0 Now, we are only 11 days away from it’s implementation, and we have to listen to this crank come up with some silly videos and some truly stupid ideas.\u00a0 If you don’t like your credit cards, cut them up and carry cash with you every where you go.<\/p>\n

Until then, just grow up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I like to think of myself as a pretty big consumer advocate.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I can and do call out banks on their outrageous credit card practices.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I strongly supported the CARD act and would have supported an even tougher law.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You know that someone is taking their feelings too far when even I start to roll […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Is Up With This Anti-Credit Card Rant?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/what-is-up-with-this-anti-credit-card-rant\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" 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