Take this post as a rant or call it anything. It is difficult to talk about “modern day debt slavery” as we mentioned in the last post, without getting angry at the perpetrators.
In an even earlier post, we discussed about the “Curse of the Plastic - Why We Should Beware of Credit Cards.”
Well, it is the same “curse” that is worth discussing hundreds of times. We need an overkill on this very important issue.
Credit card debt is like an “Achilles heel”, an area where common folks like us, are most vulnerable. It is so pointless trying to save unless we solve our vulnerability to get victimized by this curse.
For this post, I would call this credit card curse another name: “the curse of the passersby chasers.” Why I call this so, may be something obvious for some. For others, a little explanatory note of sorts may be necessary.
The legal profession has a pejorative term for lawyers who try to chase accident victims and try to make clients out of them. They call these lawyers “ambulance chasers”.
Dictionaries define “ambulance chasers” as unethical lawyers trying to make a living out of inciting accident victims to sue for damages.
Now, we have a clone of the ambulance chasers in the credit business. I call them “passersby chasers”.
These despicable guys chase passersby in malls and shopping centers and then try to ram their credit card applications into the throats of passersby – trying to make all of them credit card holders.
Forget about credit worthiness – the hallowed anchor principle of credit granting since time immemorial. The credit card issuers want to make oodles and oodles of money and to hell with credit worthiness.
In any case, they have thoroughly provided for losses by default or inability to pay. The interest rates for unpaid balances are so sky high (as much as 50% per annum) so that losses from default will be easily covered.
Speaking of the guys who actually do the chasing, these are not the real passersby chasers. They are just paid hacks trained like poodles to chase bones.
The real passersby chasers, the dogs or more appropriately, the wolves, are the architects of these schemes. They are the ones who conceived, implemented and relentlessly continue such practice.
As if earning oodles of money is not enough, these guys practically resurrected the heartless ancient practice of “debt slavery” as we mentioned in the last post, “Be Investment Literate or Go to Jail – Tales of Modern Day Debt Slavery”.
The same guys conceived of using “bouncing checks” to incarcerate victims.
Back to ambulance chasers, at least they are more useful to society. One way or another, they serve the ends of justice for the accident victims and/or their kins.
For the “passersby chasers,” I doubt if they serve any useful purpose to society at all. They are like witches and sorcerers; they make money by inflicting “curses” to the innocent. They live off the misery of other people.
Dogs, wolves, witches, sorcerers – the metaphors may not run out. One sure thing is that the credit card business is getting so bastardized and is sinking fast down abysmal depths.
There was a time when the possession of a credit card was a sign of financial respectability. Now it is fast evolving as a sign of gullibility or extravagant folly.
Right now, bad debt estimates on credit cards in many parts of the world are in the vicinity of 12% to 15% and rising.
Credit card debt is fast going down the path of the sub-prime fiasco and the signs are unmistakably similar.
At the center of these signs are the relentlessly shameless chasing of passersby would-be cardholders, the offering of unbelievably over-flattering perks and, more importantly, the ditching of the elementary rules of credit granting.
I just hope these card issuers eventually come to their senses before it is too late.
For our poor innocent folks out there, on the other hand, all I can say once again is:
“Beware of the ‘curse of the plastic’ or the ‘curse of the passersby chasers’”!
Next time you pass by the malls, just avoid the station of the “poodles”.
If they still try to chase you from afar, just raise and show your “fist of fury” and I’m sure they will take a hasty retreat.
