I received a 'pre-qualified' Visa offer from Aspire in the mail yesterday. It advertises 'no deposit, no application fee' and a $300 credit limit. When you look at the fine print you see there is an annual fee of $150, an account opening fee of $29 and a monthly maintenance fee of $6.50 ($78 a year). I don't see how it can be legal to send something like this out.
Remember when the word "free" actually meant no charge? It sounds like a great deal. As soon as you sign up, you've just about gobbled up your CL and have enough room to charge a gallon of gas. Aspire, as you've figured out, is no prime lender. I kept their card through my BK (mistake!) and they now have zero customer support. You call their phone line and get your balance, but any questions must be submitted in writing.
A agree totally. You will regret you ever got this card as soon as your very first phone call to customer service....It is really that bad.
Unbelievable terms, possibly even worse than those inflicted by First Premier. Aspire has gotten a lot worse since early 2001, the last time I called them.
Let's see.... 1 million suckers (er, I mean customers) is $150 million a year in Annual Fees, $29 million just for them to send you a half cent's worth of plastic to keep in your wallet and a perpetuity of $6.5 million a month. For that kind of revenue, I'd offer a credit card too.
It is predatory lending... And occasionally the preditors do get eatten by the FTC when they cross over the line... Here is a good example of what happens when a preditor gets caught by stacking the deck a little too far in their own favor... "By signing this contract, you lose all your rights to defend yourself, even in the case of FRAUD... oh, and if you should try to decide to defend yourself, i hope you get a lot of frequent flyer miles..." of course, this clause is in the midst of dozens of pages of legalese, that usually you only have 5 seconds to read between being brow-beated into signing and initialling in dozens of places... http://www.budhibbs.com/budhibbs/agencydetails.asp?ID=63 Oh, their punishment, $1 million in fines, and having to forgive $24 million in accounts... and having to change the verbiage of their contracts, until they figure out a new way to phrase the verbiage again...
Tried to edit, but timed-out... ;( Oh, you'll want to check out the actual url at the FTC web site... One of the allegations of fraud in the complaint by the FTC involved the company having their employees act as spys and disseminate inaccurate information in forums which consumers discussed their problems with the company... I think that they included that in "COUNT III" of the complaint, but that is discussed more completely as item 27 under Defendents' Business Activities...
