X.com did Indeed offer credit cards, because a friend of mine was sorting through old financial records a couple months ago and pulled out 2 X.com Visa Cards she had back in the day.
How did x.com handle the old accounts when they went under? Breeze- seems like you made out ok. Bill- sounds like you got the shaft. Shawn
I also have 2 titanium visa cards from x.com, they were debit cards. They may have offered credit cards, but they are small potatoes to providian and would never be handled like x.com was.
bbauer- Um, yes Providian is a bank, in the full sense of the word. They offer deposit products and are FDIC insured. They are, in fact, a holding company and under that structure have TWO banks - Prividian Bank (Utah) and Providian National Bank (Tilton, NH). The Utah bank is a credit card bank, and doesn't take deposits. But the Tilton NH bank is a real bricks-and-mortar place -- I've been through Tilton NH and have seen it with my own two eyes (did a double-take when I saw that logo on a building!). Will they go bye-bye? Not on your life. The balances are all sold as securities on the bond markets, and at their current stock levels, would be a steal for any one of their fellow "top 10" issuers (Chase, Citi, Morgan Stanley, Amex, Fleet, BankOne, Capital One, MBNA, BankAmerica) right now. Question is who has the stock price or capital to buy 'em (1/2 of that list). -mj
Not at all, Supershawn. Have you not seen how NCO handled me after they bought the X.Com accounts? It's on my website at http://www.creditwrench.com/works1.html It's their letter of capitulation. They would not admit any wrong doing in writing, of course, but what with the way they sent the capitulation letter to me via FEDEX overnight express and did the same to the 3 Credit Bureaus trying to get it off my reports before it bit them, you know they didn't want no part of me or my CreditWrench. They even called me up the next Sunday morning and wanted to be sure I had received their letter by FEDEX. Them birds wasn't taking any chances.
Good job Bill- sorry to hear you got shafted. I am wondering about Providian, though, the news really wasn't that bad but the stock really plummented. I'm far from an expert, but it seems to me that the worse case scenerio, short-medium term, would be Chapter 11, which really shouldn't affect cardholders at all. I am not sure...the stock is almost tempting at 5 bucks for a long term investment..... hmmmm.... Shawn
I had used some of the line of credit they gave me. When they went out of the banking business, they turned the accounts over to EMCC (I guess that's NCO) - the account was current when they turned it over. I started sending my payments via paypal. No problems at all. They did report it on TU as paid as agreed, but it was being reported as revolving account - I called them and said, "if this is a revolving account, what's my limit? Where's my card or my checks to access my credit?" The guy was kind of floored when I called, he was saying "ummm your payments are current, but, but there's no ummm revolving account." So I said, well don't report it that way. It says right here on my credit report that it's revolving, and you're screwing up my ratio. He told me he had no way to fix the reporting that he just answered the phone. hahahaha. Then he offered to settle!!! - I said "you mean I wouldn't have to pay it all?" and he said "that's right." and he made me an offer. I said "no thanks, I don't have any problem with it, I owe it. And I know you would report a chargeoff." He said "No we'll report it paid as agreed." So I said, "well I'm sorry, but you just told me you had nothing to do with how it's reported, so I'll just go on and pay it all, but thanks anyway." He couldn't really answer me. hahahaha!! But they had TU take it off!!! So I sent them the full amount, with a note thanking them for removing it from my report.
Stock value continues down closed Wed at $4.17 a share. At some point another company will see them as a bargain. Currently selling at more than a 90% discount.
One thing people need to keep in mind when buying stock in a distressed financial services company. The common stockholder usually gets nothing. These companies don't merge or get bought out. They have a trustee liquidating assets. The cc portfoilio is sold to to one firm, the mortgage pool to someone else. The money is used to payoff the nonpreforming asssets. The shareholder is a the bottom of a real deep barrel. One other thought. Many business models banks and cc companies use predict that with 2 consectutive quaters of an unemployment rate above 5.5%, you'll see bankruptcies running at a 2 million annual rate. And, defaults are 3 to 5 times the number of bk's. There is a lot more bad news left in Providians portfoilio.
IF THEY ARE GOING TO TAKE A DUMP , does that mean they will change their credit approval standards to include people with F.I.C.O. SCORES ABOVE 650??? THE "GO-TO" IS ACTUALLY BETTER THAN MY MBNA QUANTUM AND AMEX BLUE... THE 0.00% INTRO RATE AIN'T THAT SHABBY EITHER!!!
I'm with you SUPERSHAWN. They weren't my first Post Ch7 but the first to give me A real limit. Somone has to break you out of getting $250 and $500 cards and Providian did it for me. I hope they pull out of it too.
