Daily PUMA Column - Commentary by Alessandro Machi

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Are you a Toxic Asset? Chase and Citibank may have you Pegged as a Toxic Asset, Especially if you Pay your Bills on Time!

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Do you make all of your credit card payments on time? Do you scour the credit card companies for their best offers? Do you reject the credit card companies 6 month low interest rate offers that then skyrocket to much higher interest rates and instead hold out for the longer, LIFE OF THE LOAN, LOW INTEREST RATE credit card offers?


When you were offered LIFE OF THE LOAN, LOW INTEREST RATE CREDIT CARD OFFERS specifically because you have been a good customer who always paid your bills on time, did you ever think the banking industry would one day call your loan, and you, a toxic asset? 

Well let me be the first to tell you, YOU ARE A TOXIC ASSET IF YOU HAVE ALWAYS PAID YOUR BILLS ON TIME, AND YOU MUST BE CONVERTED TO SOILED GREEN.Soiled Green is the act of banks trying to SOIL your credit rating by increasing your monthly minimum payment 250%. When you can't afford this 250% increase (600 dollars a month for some customers) the banks then report your Toxicness to the credit bureaus and then charge you obscenely higher interest rates on the very same debt you previously had been paying down for years, on time.

In the movie Soylent Green, we discover the food source at the end of the movie is other humans. In this instance, we discover that the banks appear bent on destroying good credit scores of their most reliable customers so they can add fees and dramatically increase interest rates on them. Then these new found profits will be fed to those with poorer credit, resulting in even more loans at ridiculously high interest rates.

Once the formerly good credit rating is soiled, the customers OTHER CREDIT CARD LOANS will most likely get hit with much higher interest rates as well. Only then will Wall Street Be Happy because it means these robber baron banks have created more profit. At which point, the person with the formerly excellent credit history becomes a frightened worker bee whose only mission is to try and pay bills, nothing else matters nor do they care to get involved or protest basically illegal credit card actions out of fear they will fall further behind with their bills.

If americans do want to peacefully fight back against the credit card companies, please check out www.Daily-Protest.com. Not only will you be saving your fellow american, the one hour a day protest is turning out to be wonderful exercise!

When Chase and Citibank get through with you and you default on your long term low interest rate balance transfer loan because Chase and Citibank have increased the monthly minimum payment by 250%, Chase and Citibank can then file liens on your home, all the while charging you 1,000 percent more in interest on that same low interest, life of the loan credit card offer that you used to pay on time, and pay down, every month before the change in terms happened.

Chase and Citibank will now call you a toxic asset. In truth, you are actually a "Converted Toxic Asset". You were converted from being a solid, always paying on time customer, to a toxic asset, courtesy of Chase and Citibank and other banks that will soon follow their lead.A portion of the population was called "bitter" last year, now this year, additional americans are being converted to toxic assets by the banks who lent then money then changed the terms without giving these customers an opt out option.

For those of you who don't have these credit card loans and think this doesn't affect you, chances are a small business owner near has seen their business revenue decline because customers are now overpaying Chase and Citibank. Chances are a family friend or neighbor has been affected, and has internalized their problem rather than gone public.

Divide and conquer is a tried and true method and that is exactly what JP Morgan Chase Bank and Citibank are doing. Maybe you are not Bitter, nor a Toxic Asset, nor had your frequent flyer miles stolen and resold for better loan terms between American Airlines and Citibank, nor had a change in terms that you were not allowed to opt out, but most certainly some people who use your products or services have been affected, and that WILL affect your bottom line.

(edit note, Citibank seems to be waiting to pounce with their own change in terms plan, they may be waiting to see how much public outrage there is over what Chase Bank has already done before doing it themselves. I had been told by a Citibank worker that they were doing what Chase Bank was doing when I first wrote this article, but so far Citibank has shown far more integrity than Chase Bank by not following Chase Bank's path.)

7 comments:

catsden said...

I'm glad you caught this story. There are so many things going on right now that we need everyone has to be constantly on their toes. My bank hasn't raised the minimum yet, but I am definitely a toxic asset if they want to come after me.

Why oh why, did I pay my bills on time?

Alessandro Machi said...

Ha Ha, keep paying your bills on time. There may be class action lawsuits arising over these Bank misdeeds.

I have read of at least one.

pdurant said...

There are actually 13 class action lawsuits that have been filed against Chase since January on this very issue. You can see the list with links to the law firms filing them at www.changeinterms.com The 400,000 account holders who were affected by Chase's unilateral increase of monthly payment requirements were not given an opt-out option are thus members of the class.

Dr. Robert Lahm, a professor of entrepreneurship, created the changeinterms.com website and it has a wealth of information about this very issue and what we can do to fight it. There is a ton of information on the site.

There is a huge tidal wave of responsible, high-credit score consumers who are angry and will not stop fighting these egregious actions until Chase is sorry they ever attempted to stick a knife in our backs and twist it. Chase picked the wrong group - they are going down by their own ham handed actions.

vdavisson said...

I saw this blog post mentioned at Uppity Woman's blog. This is infuriating. Maybe a class action suit will redress the problem but likely not before many people's credit ratings are trashed.

Alessandro Machi said...

Thanks all for contributing such excellent information and comments.

AMEX and CitiBank conspire to steal millions of frequent flyer miles from their most trusthworthy credit card customers

You may be a toxic asset and not even know it.

How Credit Card Companies are snuffing the life out of small business.

Soros admits banks are sucking the life blood out of small businesses.

Daily-Protest.com

Larry said...

Friends don't let Friends use Chase Credit...


pass it on

Guy Bertram said...

Friends don't let Friends use Chase Bank.

pass it on:)

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