Credit Card companies....question

[OnionPatch]

I write a newsletter for a Dem Club. I've got some information on credit card companies for a segment I'm putting together on voting with your wallet. There is a listing of credit card companies and who they donated to in recent election. There is only one company that donated more to Democrats. Providian. I did a google on them and found some stories where they had held back applying payments to people's accounts so they could charge them late fees. Does anyone know anymore about this or have information on credit card companies. I'd like to find a few that might recommend to my fellow lefties.

[meti57b]

1. once I found a website ... url something like howyourmoneyvotes.com ....

I forgot to bookmark it and now I can't find it. If anyone has that url, I would sure like to have it. You could input the name of any company and it would give you a list of who they contribute to.

[ClintonTyree]

2. I've heard..............

but cannot give documentation (do a Google) that Providian is one of the more, if not the most, predatory credit card company in existence.

They charge very high interest rates and prey upon people with bad or non-existent credit.

[ClintonTyree]

3. I also believe.............

that they settled litigation recently over unscupulous credit practices. I remember reading about it in the newspaper. I don't know if any of this information helps, but that's all I can provide.

[Avalon Sparks]

4. I've had a Providian Card for years...

Never had a problem with it. Usually I pay it off at the end of the month. The worst credit card company in my opinion is Cross Country Visa. My husband had that card for awhile and their customer service people were the rudest on the planet.

Providian Bank, Merrick Bank, Capital One and Cross Country Bank (and I'm sure many others) are credit card companies that usually give people a second chance when they have really bad credit reports. After messing up my own credit right after graduating college, I got a Capital One card and I had to put money (about 150 bucks) to get a 300 dollar limit. I paid that card within days of receiving each statement, and within a year I had a Providian card and Merrick card too. Same thing, I paid within 5 days of getting the statement. Gradually, I begin to give myself about 7 - 10 days before the payment was due, and I still never had a late payment on any of the cards.

The thing is though, I think they don't cut people any slack - no grace period if the payments a day late for example, and another thing they do is give less time before you get your statement and the due date. A little less than 3 weeks, so people don't realize they missed the due date. They will also let you charge over the card by not declining purchases, but then charge another fee for that. I don't think they deliberately hold back payments or I would have been charged at least once in the last 10 years. Their fees (for late charge, over the limit, and yearly fee) are also higher than fees for other credit card banks that don't take on high risk users. Now that I have good credit, I receive offers I never would have gottan 10 years ago.

I still keep them because I've had them so long, and also get the card fee waived every year. Capital One was the only card that wouldn't waived it so I cancelled it awhile back. I also pay off my balance each month so I don't care what the interest rates are. I've been happy with the cards.

I usually will take the people's side over corporations, but in this case I think a lot of the people that complain about these cc companies that take on high risk customers maybe really aren't paying their bills on time, and may be going over their limits. I am grateful that I was able to repair my credit damage by having these cards, so maybe I'm a little biased. I can only judge by my own experience.

[depakid]

5. Providian isn't much worse than most

They had a business strategy that targeted people with poor credit and they engaged in some illegal and abusive practices- for which they were prosecuted in California and sued in class actions.

Even so, when you look at the pattern of abusive practices throughout the industry, they aren't all that different, although at one time I heard that some cardholders had interest rated of 30%!

That being said, you be much beter off finding a way into a credit union than dealing with the credit card usury.