Exclusive: Lone protester takes on corporate giant

[Jaundice James]

Source: Examiner.com

Machi told me that despite his history of timely and complete payment, Chase raised the minimum payments he’s required to pay on his debt from 2% to 5%, pushing his already hair raising financial state to the brink of tragedy. According to him, when he contacted them about it, they kindly offered to raise his interest rate instead. Machi explained that, as he understands it, the terms were supposed to be for the life of the loan.

Machi’s one-man picket line began yesterday and will continue, “Until I get the change I can believe in – until Chase honors their word.”

Staying just clear of conspiracy theory, Machi launched into a tirade over the phone about how this new presidential administration was supposed to “clean things up” and how he sees the current state of things being something that “makes it dirtier”. It wasn’t precisely clear what the “it” was. You see, Machi is passionate about consumer protection, has strong opinions about economic policy, and can easily work himself into a lather talking about it.

Read more: http://www.examiner.com/x-1470-DC-Corporate-Ethics-Examiner~y2009m4d7-Exclusive-Lone-protester-takes-on-corporate-giant

[baldguy]

1. Recriminalize usury.

[tama]

3. Ususy

= taking interest on a loan.

That's the most basic basic: no more usury. The planet cannot handle anymore usury, if it's going to stay a planet that can handle beings like us.

[spag68]

9. Usury

That's not quite correct. Back in the fifties there was a law, long gone, that prohibited more then 10%. Returning to that figure would destroy my own stock, but candidly, my piddling investment would gladly be sacrificed to go back to those days.

[tama]

12. Longer memory

"Usury (pronounced /ˈjuːʒəri/, comes from the Medieval Latin usuria, "interest" or "excessive interest", from the Latin usura "interest") originally meant the charging of interest on loans. This would have included charging a fee for the use of money, such as at a bureau de change. After countries legislated to limit the rate of interest on loans, usury came to mean the interest above the lawful rate. In common usage today, the word means the charging of unreasonable or relatively high rates of interest. As such, the term is largely derived from Abrahamic religious principles; Riba is the corresponding Islamic term. The primary focus in this article is on the Christian tradition.

The pivotal change in the English-speaking world seems to have come with the permission to charge interest on lent money: particularly the Act 'In restraint of usury' of Henry VIII in England in 1545 (see book references)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usury

What is essential about interest on loans aka usury is the simple mathematical fact that all usury based systems are forced to grow (exponentially!) the amount of interest to stay functional. Hence, if we ever want live within and in balance with the natural limits of Mother Earth, the litterally mortal sin of usury must be abandoned.

It's good to do a systemic analysis to see the roots of our common problems, and then to study our particular problems as parts of more general problems. Otherwise we cannot rise above being mechanical puppets of systemic greed.

[skepticscott]

13. If nobody could charge interest

on a loan, there would be no more loans. How long do you think the economy would last?

[tama]

14. THE economy

of debt slavery wouldn't last - that's the whole point. So that living could really start and go on living.

As for your no-more-loans claim, you decide:

Or if your neighbour-relative-friend-spouse-child needed a tool to do gardening work or what ever, a tool that you were not using at the moment, would you lend it without interest?

So if your neighbour-relative-friend-spouse-child was starving (after crop failed or was eaten by mice or what ever) but your crop did fine - would you (give or) loan a sack of potatos without interest?

[xchrom]

2. these card interest rates are fucking criminal. nt

[Jkid]

4. A company offering to raise a interest rate?

Chase has finally lost it.

[northofdenali]

5. K&R'd

and AGREED. Chase isn't the only company pulling this - so is Capital One, who were raising rates on my two now paid off and cut up, cancelled cards to 31% in July!

[ladywnch]

6. I just got a letter from BOA today pretty much giving me the same

choice: either move me to a variable rate that is twice the fixed rate I signed on for (not a promotional rate; a true fixed rate that would remain fixed until or unless I exceeded my credit line (never happened) or I missed a payment (never happened). In fact I have always paid more than my minimum)

They told me I could keep my rate but I could never use the card again. If I charged anything on it my rate will automatically go to the 13% variable rate. They told me the cost of doing credit business had gone up..... I cut him off saying that the Prime rate was somewhere around a quarter point and that 7.99% still gave them a healthy profit.

They also cut my credit line by 50%. Then they applied the same constraints on my other card with them! 'what we do to one account we do to all accounts' !!!!!!

Once these cards are paid off the accounts will be closed and I will NEVER carry another BOA card as long as I live. I don't care if they are the last bank card left on the planet.

I need to keep at least one card for business use (no the company doesn't supply one) and to make hotel and car rental reservations......the rest.......TOAST! And if I ever get another unsolicited card offer I will burn the offer and return it to them in their prepaid envelope along with vulgar letter telling them what they can do with their offer.

not that I'm angry or anything......

[imdjh]

7. I'm really surprised that there hasn't been more about this Chase thing.

One of the things is, that whenever you complain about revolving credit, the smartasses line with their internet anonymity protecting their self righteousness to tell you that you are an idiot for using revolving lines of credit. "But it was fixed rate for life." ...doesn't matter, the internet geniuses have at you.

But you would think this would have leapt from the internet. It's certainly being discussed at length. I wrote to Amy Goodman about it. I thought maybe she would report on something that actually mattered to everyday people, nothing. I wrote to some other folks, nothing.

I wrote because a friend called me up very upset at what Chase had done. He had accepted an offer many months ago, for a fixed rate for the life of the loan. Those are Chase's words, "Fixed rate for the life of the loan." Chase hadn't raised his "rate", they had added $120 per year "fee" to the card, $10 per month. They had also increased the minimum payment from about $200 per month to $500 per month. Taking this offer was NOT an irresponsible act on the part of my friend. His balance wasn't concert tickets, designer clothes, and dinners at restaurants he couldn't afford. What he had done was transfer the remainder of his auto loan from a 7.6% rate to a 2.99% rate. He called Chase, and they said that they would take off the fee, and allow him to continue the lower monthly payment, if he would agree to a much higher variable rate. Naturally, he was talking to a call center in Punjab and the employee didn't actually have the power to do anything, as the US Chase employees once did.

This is not the first time Chase has pulled this. They have been running scams for a long long time. They're favorite is to send special rate checks out to people whose accounts aren't eligible for the special rate. Their defense is that it says right there that they have the right to refuse to pay the check and that some accounts aren't eligible for the rate. What other business do we tolerate this behavior from? What other business gets away with saying, "But our contract says that we have the right to change the terms at any time."? That's not a contract, and it's not an honest way of doing business.

Life of the loan, means life of the loan. Raising the rate and calling it a fee is fraud. Raising the minimum payment in an effort to force the customer to transfer the balance elsewhere, in an effort to make it so that the customer cannot honor his obligation under the original terms is fraud.

Fortunately, my friend had other options available to him. Not everyone has easy options. For others, look into bankruptcy- it's not what your parents made it out to be.

[spag68]

10. Contracts

Contracts are only enforcable for the thieves running AIG, hedge funds, and banks. Auto workers, Union contracts, everyday people, not so much.

[imdjh]

11. looking better

http://www.americanbanker.com/article.html?id=200903278AHLG57I

[RedCloud]

8. My credit card company keeps changing the due date

I think they are trying to trap me. Why is it some months near the first and other months on the 11th? I already asked those dildoheads to just make it the same day such as the fifth and they agree and then after two or three months they are back to the shit again.