This weekend I was driving down the road when I noticed a reader board outside a small town bank. The message on the board said, "Increase your summer fun with a home equity loan". Really? In 2008? The sad thing about this is that I’m sure someone will take that message and borrow money to make their summer more fun. I was hoping that people were starting to wake up to the fact that they should keep their spending in check and spend less than they earn. I suppose the reality is that the message hasn’t gotten to everyone. While millions of people struggle to make ends meet due to their mounting credit card debt, institutions all around the country are fighting to give them more debt. It sure seems unfortunate.
Along those same lines, I saw an article in the New York Times today that profiles a woman in Philadelphia (Diane Mcleod). She’s pretty much at the end of her debt run and is about to lose her house. Even after all of her defaulting, she still receives credit card offers. The last one she received could easily be called a predatory offer. It’s for a $300 limit credit card and $150 of that goes to the bank each year in fees.
I watch the video, and I’m sure she is not alone
Refinancing should be banned! it serves no purpose. They charge you for the loan (fees) and you still have the debt.
All you did was move it
This kind of marketing must still work, unfortunately. It’s almost like debt consolidation loans – get a loan to pay off all your debt – but you still have the loan debt!? The adverts that say ‘we can reduce your monthly repayments’ yeah – if you spread the term over 30 years of course the monthly amount you repay will reduce! I can’t beleive companies are still allowed to advertise like this.
For what it’s worth the problem is a global one. In the UK everyones currently struggling and home reposessions are up 25% year on year. A huge jump. I guess both of our governments need to do more to control creditors and protect families.
Very useful post. where can i find more articles about this issue?
Unfortunately people still have not learn’t to keep their spending in check. Only yesterday I received moer junk mail offering me store cards and those awful credit card cheques you get. The ones where your credit card company sends you a blank cheque to write for yourself. They don’t make it very clear what the APR is – now these are dangerous! Aparantly 6% of people who receive these cheques actually use them and this marketing is worth millions to UK credit card companies…