NYT: Newly Bankrupt Raking In Piles of Credit Offers

[Rose Siding]

As one of more than two million Americans who rushed to a courthouse this year to file for bankruptcy before a tough new law took effect, Laura Fogle is glad for her chance at a fresh start. A nurse and single mother of two, she blames her use of credit cards after cancer surgery for falling into deep debt.

Ms. Fogle is broke, and may not seem to be the kind of person to whom banks would want to offer credit cards. But she said she had no sooner filed for bankruptcy, and sworn off plastic, than she was hit with a flurry of solicitations from major banks.
....
If it seems odd to Ms. Fogle that banks would want to lend money to the newly bankrupt, it is no mystery to the financial community, which charges some of the highest interest rates to these newly available customers.

Under the new law, which the banking industry spent more than $100 million lobbying for, they may be even more attractive because it makes it harder for them to escape new credit card debt and extends to eight years from six the time before which they could liquidate their debts through bankruptcy again.

"The theory is that people who have just declared bankruptcy are a good credit risk because their old debts are clean and now they won't be able to get a new discharge for eight years,"

http://nytimes.com/2005/12/11/national/11credit.html?hp&ex=1134363600&en=ab89cbe431f36eb0&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[newscott]

1. Bastards. Same thing happened to me after I filed 8 years ago.

The credit card companies have no shame and deserve no sympathy.