Dear Capitol One,

[SoCalDem]

Guess what's in MY wallet? NOT your credit card anymore..or any other ones, for that matter



I read in the papers and saw on tv how you and your pals are "writing off" billions of dollars-worth of debts, because your Harvard MBA geniuses apparently could not understand how a Ponzi scheme works.

I am sure that you will then understand how I and my debt-ridden cohorts are now deciding that if "experts' like you people can get "caught unawares", you will certainly understand why we are "writing off OUR debts" to you and your pals.

We don't even owe you billions, and if we had been blessed with atomic microscope vision, a legal degree, and the patience of Job, perhaps we might have made it through all your where-ases, and party-of the-first-parts in that tissue-esque, 14 page love note you send with your statements.

So unless you want the cocoa-stained couch we've been paying on for three years now, or the outgrown shoes that Johnny left on the back seat of the car that got repossessed last week, or the other stuff we have paid for many times (minus the late charges and 35% interest rates), this letter will have to do.

Thinking about coming after our house? Good luck.. the bank and the 2nd mortgage holders are duking it out with the 3rd mortgage holder. We're sleeping on inflatable mattresses in my sister-in-law's family room.

So you say you'll ruin our credit? Take a number..

Maybe you can fold all these letters up and use THEM to level that wiggly coffee table..


sincerely..

Mr & Mrs Chumpsnomore

[eridani]

1. The sky is darkening with the shadows--

--of chickens coming home to roost.

[Joanne98]

2. BRAVO!!!!!

[DemReadingDU]

3. Really bad in Cleveland, Ohio

11/12/07
As the Treasurer of Cuyahoga County in Ohio, Jim Rokakis spends a lot of his time trying to deal with Cleveland's foreclosure crisis.

When asked recently just how bad it is, Rokakis unfurled a six-foot by four-foot Cleveland city plot map. Each lot was covered with dots of red ink where foreclosed homes filled the plots. From a few feet away, the map looked heavily freckled, while some neighborhoods nearly melted together in crimson masses.

Foreclosures hit Cleveland early and hard. By the summer of 2007, it had four of the top 21 ZIP codes for foreclosure filings in the United States. According to RealtyTrac, the city's 44105 ZIP, known as the Slavic Village, was the hardest hit U.S. community with 783 filings.

What made Cleveland the nation's foreclosure epicenter?

more...
http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/12/real_estate/Cleveland_foreclosure_factors/index.htm?postversion=2007111315

[KharmaTrain]

4. Their Definition Of A Deadbeat:

Someone who maintains a zero balance.

Excellent letter. These blood-suckers got their bankruptcy bill through a couple years ago...thought they could raise rates willy-nilly and people would just shell out and shut up. There's only so much blood you can get from a stone...given feeding my kids or paying your compounded interested, you can go compound sand.

The credit bomb has been ticking for years...and the greed of the banks has created this crisis. They wanted more money, faster...instead they got defaults and foreclosures.

[SoCalDem]

7. To keep our one card "active", we use it once a month and pay it off

:)

[KharmaTrain]

9. My "Fun" With Discover

They always seemed to lose my check on the billing date...even when we mailed it two weeks in advance. One day I get a call from one of their "reps" saying how they appreciate us being such "good customers" and to offer us a special "reward"...a combination of dining certificates and upgrades to our account. My wife didn't think much about it and said "OK"...we later learned what a mistake that was. Next month our bill zoomed up $200 dollars...supposedly we had "OK'd" all types of additional expenses by accepting the upgrade. I called Discover to complain and was told I was stuck with this upgrade for at least six month...and "not to worry, you don't have to pay it all off at once" (wink wink). I cancelled the card.

Unfortunately I've also known people who've abused cards..."I need it now, I'll figure a way to pay it later"...but that's what the creditors have preyed upon and the rest of us pay for it with all sorts of fees.

I try to avoid using cards, where possible, but its impossible to travel without one. And if you do it right, which sounds like you are, it can help a credit rating.

Cheers...

[SoCalDem]

11. Luckily we are at a stage of life (older boomers) , where our credit rating's not a big deal

We've had the same insurance for 40 years..been in the same house for 26 years, have accounts at 3 banks, pay cash for our cars, and use our debit card for all purchases, so we are not the target demo for the credit cards.. but they still keep trying :)

[MLFerrell]

17. Two suggestions:

Pre-paid credit cards for plane tickets and other large purchases, and a debit card for everything else.

[DangerDave921]

10. Banks and Greed

You can't lay all the blame on the banks. Yes, their interest rates are crazy. But they don't force anyone to borrow money. I lay some blame on the people borrowing money like they never have to worry about it.

We have a credit-card world now where people don't seem to realize that when you borrow money, you have to pay it back with interest. And paying only the minimum each month means you'll be paying far more than the item actually cost. The credit-card has done more to hurt people financially than anything else I can think of because the purchase feels almost free when you buy it - just a quick blip on the computer and hey - you walk out with a new TV, or new clothes, or a new coffee maker. It doesn't seem real almost.

I was raised to never buy anything you couldn't afford. Credit cards were used rarely and only for convenience. So I carried that rule into my adult life, and am debt-free other than my home and car.

[KharmaTrain]

13. I Hear You

I put in another resposne of people I know who borrowed with the mindset of "gotta have it now, I'll figure how to pay for it later"...but I never could live that way. I came from Depression kids...almost everything was cash and fluid. If you couldn't afford it, you couldn't have it.

Most people are poorly educated on how credit and cards work. So many get them (and into trouble) in high school and college now and before they realize that paying a minimum doesn't go to the principal, they're in the hole and going deeper. I think it should be a prerequisite in schools now to take some type of econ class to at least warn kids how the financial world works.

Cards can be a good thing...and a necessity if you travel, but it's also a responsibility. At one point I maxed out our cards in order to keep my family fed between jobs...it took a long time to pay them off and have no regrets on doing what I felt was needed at a critical time, but it was an expensive price to pay...and millions are stuck in that revolving door with higher bills and rates with shrinking incomes.

Cheers...

[DangerDave921]

14. Clarify

Of course cards are necessary when you are between jobs, or have unforseen circumstances. They can be a great bridge to get you across that tough time. I didn't mean to imply that one should never use cards.

I wholeheartedly agree about more economic education in high school and college. I thank my dad (a small business owner) for educating me as a kid on the value of money. The credit card companies take advantage of college kids who don't know anything about borrowing money, interest, principal, etc. I had friends in college who were buying a ton of stuff on plastic under the theory that cards were there to buy things you couldn't afford. I knew one girl who had $20,000 in debt at age 25. I don't mean from tuition or other necessities. I mean from buying crap for years on end. At 18% interest, that's $3600 per year just in interest.

[SoCalDem]

25. College kids often have NO real-life experience managing money

and if they go to college on loans & parental aid, they are easy prey for credit card sharks.

People at that age are probably as optimistic as they will ever be in their lifetime, and I think they actually expect to be able to pay off those card debts...and then when they leave school owing SO much money ...well.. what's a "few more bucks on the card", when you already owe more than you can pay back..

[1932]

15. They may not physically force you to borrow money. But 15 years ago, they didn't lend anyone

who asked for it money.

There used to be an assumption that, if your loan application was accepted, you met some bank metric for judging whether you had the capacity to pay back the loan.

I do think that a significant part of the blame shifts off the borrower if the bank made a loan to borrower the bank KNEW couldn't pay back the loand (which is similar to the way I think of the IMF -- if the IMF knew developing countries wouldn't be able to pay back the loans, and only made the loans because they wanted those countries to default so that they could force them to sell all their assets and give away political and economic control of their countries...).

I feel this even more acutely with mortgages. I don't believe for a second that mortgage lenders believed that housing prices were permanently up and that rising values would be adequate security for many of the mortgages they were issuing. I'm sure that they just wanted to increase prices as much as possible so that, before the bubble burst, they could pay out as much money as possible in salaries, christmas bonuses, and stock options to insiders.

[MLFerrell]

19. "...debt-free other than my home and car."

So, in other words, you're not debt-free at all.

[DangerDave921]

22. LOL

Yes, you got me.

What is your point? I said debt-free other than home and car. I didn't say I was debt-free completely. Homes and cars are usually the two big-ticket items that most people need to use credit, so that is usually not a problem having debt for those things.

I was referring to the ususal credit-card debt that people carry on everyday purchases, which I don't have.

Again -- what is your point? Other than to restate exactly what I said.

[SoCalDem]

23. and unless you live in someone else's basement, ya gotta live SOMEWHERE

so if you were not making a house payment , you'd still be paying rent.. and cars cost a lot these days, so car payments are the norm for most people :)

[Tesha]

34. My *CREDIT UNION* seems to think I'm okay, even if I'm a "deadbeat"

My *CREDIT UNION* seems to think I'm okay, even if I'm a
(mostly) non-interest-paying "deadbeat" with my credit card;
I guess they're happy enough with my cash balance in the
money market account and the fact that they can earn some
interest off of my car loans throughout the years.

Hint: *YOU* should be a member of a credit union too, and
to the degree possible, only do your financial business with
them. After all, a bank to which you're part owner usually
treats you better than, say, Chase or Capital One.

Tesha

[Vinca]

5. Great letter. Give 'em the couch. nt

[SoCalDem]

6. hee hee hee.. we paid off and cut up our cards years ago..but I can see people

actually feeling like doing what the letter suggests.. (

(We did keep our Discover card for when we need to reserve a hotel room or rent a car..but That's the ONLY one we kept:)

[JTFrog]

18. No "credit" cards here.

But my "debit" card (VISA) usually works just like a credit card. I used to have problems renting cars as there were only a few car rental companies that would accept a debit card. That seems to have changed as I haven't had problems renting a car in the last two years.

I just can't bring myself to buy something I can't pay for right here and now. Not after a horrible divorce and bankruptcy. I learned that lesson the hard way. And with what I see coming ahead, I think I'll be glad that I live that way in the long run.

Great letter!

[SoCalDem]

30. Our bank gave us TWO cards.. one is an ATM and the other is a debit

The ATM is strictly limited to what you have in your checking account, but the debit card (with a visa/mc logo) "can be" used like a credit card if you wish/need to.. The individual bank decides what your "limit" is..usually 5-10K, but the charges appear on your bank statement..We've never used it as a credit card, but I'm guessing that if you had $1k in your account and you used it for $1,500, the charge would be like a credit card and would not drain your account..Hmmm that could be dicey.. people shoudl check that out before they use it that way :scared:

[JTFrog]

33. True.

I know for a fact that if the money isn't in my account that even if I choose the "credit" option on the card (or have them ring it through as a credit card) it will be declined. The dicey part with mine is that after a purchase the "credit" charges will sometimes only appear initially as $1 or as the original amount debited and then credited right away again until they actually process the credit card payment. Which means there is sometimes a small window where my account may show that I have funds and I could use my card again, but in reality those funds have been spent.

[sendero]

8. Of all of the Credit Card Bastards...

... Capital One seems like the worst in terms of policies.

I hope they go bankrupt. With prejudice.

[freebrew]

21. Maybe not the worst.

The worst experience I had was with Citibank.
I found a charge on my account from a hotel that was listed after I had left.
It wasn't mine, but apparently someone used a reciept from the hotel.
Citibank wanted all sorts of documentation, notarized letters, etc.
Capital One did not ask any questions, they took errant charges off no questions asked.
Same with American Express(business card).
Capital One charges very high rates, so I pay off every month.
Even with good credit, their charge is 15%, legalized robbery.

[AX10]

31. Not suprised to hear that Citibank is that bad.

I will not do business with Citibank.

[SoCalDem]

32. our mortgage got sold to them..

but so far (2 months) they have not screwed it up :)

[DeSwiss]

12. What a lovely letter...

....and to such deserving folks too!

- K&R!!!

[a kennedy]

16. ditto to a great letter.....

we're trying to pay off our one credit card and whew, it's tough to do, but we've made the decision to pay it off, and only do cash from now on. I love when we get letters with credit card offers, I cut up the paperwork cut off my name and mail the bits back in their own pre-paid envelope, and boy is that a rush. :bounce: We'll be credit card free in approx 3 months!!

[SoCalDem]

20. fold up the sunday supplement pages & fill the envelopes with them

at least the people opening the mail might find some coupons for pizza or carpet cleaning :)

[onethatcares]

26. plus, black out the barcode on the envelope.

they do use them as trackers. Better idea is to black out the barcode, wipe your butt,(just a little) and send it in with whatever else you want to.

[SoCalDem]

27. Stick a smiley face sticker on it?

These companies are diligent though.. they keep on sending pre-approved "offers"..sometimes one a day :)

[madokie]

24. never had one

[Mike03]

28. Beautiful post N/T

[lonestarnot]

29. Woot! excellent!

[Earth_First]

35. 100% credit card free household...

Great Letter, btw...