12.17.09
The vicissitudes of credit, or how I learned to stop worrying and love the card
At this moment, I am in the desperate need… OK, not so desperate but definitively a need, to reconstruct my credit. For us Americans, credit is extremely important. Even if we make a shit salary, we’re expected to have decent credit. In other countries, if you want to buy something rather big like say, a house, or a new car, you might have to pay a large portion of the total cost as a down payment, sometimes even in cash. Here in the United States, many people don’t realize how much the rather easy accessibility to credit changes things. We’ll be able to buy what we need, the downside being or course, that we’ll be in debt for a certain time. Hopefully, not 30 years.
In the early part of the millennium, I like many young people barely out of high school, found what I thought was a decent job. The job paid shit money, something like $6.00 miserly dollars an hour. I was hoping to gain some experience and then advance to better jobs. At this time, the economy was booming and that dot com crash didn’t seem that serious. Despite, my years of book worming, I didn’t understand the complexities of our economic system yet (that, I came to understand a bit too late).
Most young people who land a full time acquire two mandatory and important accessories: a car and a cell phone. At that age, (16 to 19, well 34 for Paris Hilton), people are carefree (unless, the kids ended up preggers at 16, then you’re fucked). The last things on their minds are savings accounts, 401Ks, life insurances, etc. If you’re not covered by your parent’s insurances, it’s not the end of the world. Bad news, calamity and hardships are the last thing on your mind. Since I wanted to rid myself of my rolling and thundering 85′ Chrysler LeBaron, I really needed to improve my non-existent credit history. Much to my surprise Providian gave me a card worth $1000.00. In retrospect, it seems unreal that someone earning $6.00 per hour could get such a high amount. Later, I was offered an additional $1000.00. Due to several family issues, I had to take use a large portion of this capital. At this point I lost my job and only source of income. I didn’t find another job after 4 months. By this point, my credit had been ruined. I managed to repay Providian their money and not take out anymore cards until I had a safe, secure job that paid real money. Later, I took out and canceled various cards, many of whom initially offered much less than Providian. Currently, I get letters from different banks and financial institutions that offer credit. With the recession, these companies seem frightened to offer too much credit. Despite the bailout and their free market doctrines, their holding the money ass tight. When reading the fine print from these companies I really have to laugh.
First Premier Bank offers me credit; they don’t tell me how much exactly, only that the minimum credit limit is $250. If I accept and signed the confirmation paper, I’ll find out how much credit I would receive. The letter does a good job of describing the different charges incurred if I accept. There’s a program fee for $95.00 for extending credit. Then there’s an account setup fee of $29.00, followed by an annual $48.00 fee. There’s also a monthly service fee of $7.00 and if you want to obtain an additional card there’s a $20.00 fee. Add this all up and you only have $51.00 left in credit and you haven’t fucking even bought anything!! Don’t forget that the monthly fee will eat up what’s left in the account in a little more than six months. The folks at First Premier Bank are smoking some powerful crack cocaine if they think people are actually going to accept that stinking offer. Normally, I just throw away these credit offers, but this time I decided to read just in case they had a good offer…..wishful thinking, of course.
