Before I make my future predictions let us look over what's occured in the past. If somebody had told you two years ago that * A law would be passed where if you showed a delinquincy in any of your other accounts or based soley on some credit score that changes daily they would have the justification to jack up your rates would you have belived it? * That many major creditors would be limiting their reporting to just the "high balance" and "current balance" Or would you have felt secure within the law which clearly states "Information on a consumer's credit report must be 100% accurate, complete, and verifiable, if not then the account must be removed from the credit report" In that case you would and are a BIG LOSER for when have the CRA's EVER followed the law. Here, let me quote the words of a 'mealy-mouthed' rep from one of the CRA's "The FCRA requires everything on the report to be correct. However, there is no obligation for creditors (or the CRA's) to report information that the creditor does not want reported." I say that the CRA's will lose on the first legal challenge, but how long before this happens and by then will it be too late?! * That Gold cards would drop from a $5000 minimum to the joke offers of $200/$300 * That APR's would raise to over 30% to 35% to over 40%!!! When a post was made on this site less than 4 months back regarding an Associates offer "Its preapporved for a $5,000 limit platinum but the interest is 33.7 fixed. There is no grace period, cash advances are 10% of the amount borrowed" It was decried as the biggest joke and ripoff of all time, that the post itself was a fake Well guess who the 'joke' is on NOW I predicted that in perhaps a year's time we would probably see those kind of rates, but never in my blackest nightmare did I ever imagine it would occur just 3 MONTHS LATER!!!!!!!! * That fees would skyrocket for cash advance fees, over-limit fees and ESPECIALLY late fees * The imposition of new fees such as foreign transaction surcharges, inactivity fees, account closing fees, balance transfer fees, customer service fees and monthly annual fees. * A number of banks would have reduced their grace periods from 25 to 20 days * Risk Based Pricing When sub-prime cards first started being offered with their subsequent skyhigh interest rates, numerous fees, bad customer service, mail and cheque scams, statements sent out days before the due date and otherwise horrible treatment, complaints were rare either by the customers who felt or were led to feel fortunate and grateful that they would even be allowed credit and certainly not by those who had good credit and looked upon these individuals as "deadbeats who deserved whatever they get" Others seeing this as a goldmine where they could 'ravage and pillage' without any restraint followed in hordes so that now the sub-primer's make up a good chunk of the market. Some prime banks seeing their market saturated and offering 'flat' profits decided to bring these high profit methods into their prime operations. First came Providian which was followed by First USA and then Fleet, the Associates and now even formerly "premium" banks such as People's have gone this route "whole hog" Thats right the chicken's have come home to roost, for all those people who thought it was only happening to the "deserving deadbeats" have now have finally woken up and found out 'the hard way' about the old parable that if you ignore evil happening to your neighbours it will inevitably make its way to you. So now we have the reality of most "prime customers" with their good credit holding accounts that with the exception of the credit limit whose terms and penalties and customer service are virtually identical to what was soley the realm of sub-prime. One last thing before I state my future picks First I will preface this with what I believe the credit industry truly desires 1. The CRA's to be no more than glorified blacklists where ONLY negative information is reported 2. That their be NO LIMIT to the amount of time that something can be reported 3. The Statue of Limitations be ELIMINATED Currently 40% of the populance has some form of bad credit whether legitimately or from inaccurate reporting. 4. They would love that figure to go up to 99% as bad/damaged credit = increased profits pure and simple I'd go so far as to say that they'd dearly love to bring back the system where debts were passed through generations! 5. The elimination or to make it exceedingly difficult to file for Chapter 7 The key thing to remember is that ALL LAWS AND REGULATIONS can be changed and repealed for enough money. And the members of Congress has conclusively demonstrated that they are FOR SALE. 1. It will become optional for the creditors in what they report. 2. Negative information will make its way to a plethora of blacklists similar in setup to CheckSystems be kept indefinately and be used increasingly by creditors to reject or offer worse options to consumers 3. Its a given that all sorts of fees will increase and new one's will be created for the sole purpose of a cash-grab. Look at any statistics regarding the banks and it will show an increasingly HUGE percentage of profits from this. 4. The almost totally anti-consumer bankruptcy laws WILL pass 5. Collection agencies will have far more power and discretion to HARASS 6. More banks will become little more than glorified shills for their multitude of useless and ripoff services which they and their affliates and divisions will push at their customers non-stop, a certain percentage of which will illegaly find its way on customer's statements and will require the customer to run an increasingly difficult guantlet to correct, while their customer service goes to hell, DISCOVER is just the first but certainly not the last 7. While true the credit and mortgage scores will be obtainable from the CRA's they will be virtually useless as the creditors will devise new scoring systems which they will not be obliged to divulge and will use that as justification for any negative action they take against their customers About the only 'positive' change I can see happening is the imposition of new and tougher laws regarding identity theft A. Because its the government that will impose this over the opposition of the credit industry B. Because of the governments' continue agenda of reducing individual's privacy and control the money supply by demanding ever increasing amount of documention for any purpose, before too long it won't only be the banks that will have "know your customer regulations" all in the name of "protecting the customer from identity theft"
RE: My Credit Predictions for You are probably right. There is no better time to improve your credit position. Do it starting now. Exercise your credit, deal from strength. The better quality accounts you hold the better position you will be in to deal with the coming changes. Profit from the experience. http://www.creditsense.com
RE: My Credit Predictions for Steven, the only thing missing is debtors' prison. But why put us in prison when we can be enslaved by what you've described. Life has the potential of becoming a work furlough if you aren't careful with credit. I needed a cold dose of reality to start my day in an upbeat mode
RE: My Credit Predictions for Steven, follow this Amazon link, it will do you wonders: www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0449911470 ))) I've carefully read your predictions. Most people would intuitively ask: All this in just a couple of years? Well I WON'T ask that, because it is bound to happen. While I do believe Congress will eventually draft a more consumer-friendly FCRA, it is certainly not in a hurry to do so. Things will have to get much worse than what they are today, in order for Congressmen to start doing something about it. Voters will have to let their elected representatives know that consumer legislation is a major concern for them, and a key-factor when considering who to vote for. This is not the case today. Consumers are not yet associating their APR to the way they vote for politicians; When they do, when they start expressing their concerns, their Congressman will have to address these concerns, or risk losing his/her seat to the other candidate, who will have promised to do so, if elected. I'm not that naive to think the CRAs will stop their donations for election campaigns, thereby pressuring politicians to support them. But this pressure, unbalancing the way Congress works, will eventually become just one factor among many. The reason I agree with you, is becuase the process will take much more than 2 years to complete, and in the meanwhile creditors will keep pushing it in their favour. Saar
RE: My Credit Predictions for You're especially right about one thing: Congress IS for sale. Our current one has certainly proved it in more ways than one. Hopefully, people will open their eyes to see that far too many members have outstayed their welcome, and if we don't send them back home soon, the dickweeds are going to take our country back to the Puritan colonial period. Unfortunately, it's older Americans like myself who are mostly to blame for voting to keep some of the old, dried-up, and shriveled turds in office because too many of us have the impression that a geriatric representative or senator has our best interests at heart. In reality, the only interests these old farts have at heart are taking us back to the good ol' days when everything was so much better. As one who grew up during the Depression and World War II, I don't remember anything being too damned good about those days! When one of the prune juice generation does eventually take his dirt nap, we little old ladies tend to give our hearts and our votes to those young, clean-cut church boys with the parts in their hair and a wife and two kids right from the pages of a Sears and Roebuck catalog. Unfortunately, these little snot-noses are far too busy trying to legislate us all closer toward heaven by pushing family values and spending all their time combatting satan and worrying too much about such diabolical symbols as Teletubbies and Jennifer Lopez's dress. With all this going on, there's no time to worry about whether or not the business world or the bureaucracies have grandma or anyone else bent over a barrel. I love it when these guys get busted with hookers and crack cocaine! The point of my novel-sized diatribe is that we all have the responsibility of electing those who are going to look out for the best interests of REAL people. They all claim to be for the people, but we all know that in most all cases the claims are pure horseshit. In order to elect the right people to represent us, we have to get up off our arses, do our homework, and inconvenience the hell out of ourselves. It's that important, and it's worth it. Our responsibilities include researching candidates' records for dealing with REAL peoples' issues, researching their sources of campaign contributions, attending town-hall type meetings that are held in our communities, and contributing a little of our time to help get the right people elected. Then, we must use up some more of our prescious time, which none of us have enough of, to speak to or write to our elected officials to inform them of our gripes and compliments. Remember, they consider us to be happy with the screwings their giving us when we don't let them know that we're not happy campers. Most of all, get up off that ever-expanding-ass and VOTE! Unfortunately, Steven Z's predictions are prime candidates for reality because far too many of us Americans don't want to be inconvenienced in any way--even if it does mean that our country and our way of life will consequently fall all to hell. We all lead extremely busy lives and have more responsibilities than we want to think about. If we don't spread ourselves even thinner than we already are in order to deal with our civic responsibilites, it ain't gonna get any better. I know, it takes a lot to push ourselves to deal with one more difficult responsibility. Especially when you won't go to jail, be turned over to a collection agency, or have anything repossessed or disconnected by ignoring it.
RE: My Credit Predictions for Thats a good one Saar. But the despite negative impression I may give it truly is not my nature. If it were I doubt I'd still be around after losing 'my shirt' the first, second even the third time . Thats the trouble with 'greed' and a belief I have an 'insight' into currency futures bahahaha. Right now I'm back to the penny stocks OUCH. Actually, when I'm on a roll I've been a marketer's dream as I typically blown almost every cent lavishly; and savings whats that? Fortunately, I have little problems with the downs as if it doesn't bother me if I have nothing in the fridge why should it bother anybody else. I don't even want to think what would happen if I was in a 'typical' wife/two kids/mortgage scenario though the likelyhood is I would be 'screwed'. As regards Congress the only way to conteract the bribes is either with GREATER bribes or failing that demonstrations in the hundreds of thousands to the millions range, preferably outside its very doors. The ominious fact to remember is that by and large the majority with "good credit" either shunned or looked down upon those with damaged and felt that "they were getting what they deserved" and thus with their inaction and silence refused to make the creditors accountable for their actions now that we are almost on the brink of it happening to the majority if may very well be too late to stem the tide. I sure hope not, some who are speaking out can be found on http://www.bankrate.com/brm/default.asp and on its horribly set up message board. Like Doris K. says the people must take the vote into their own hands and demonstrate this type of behaviour is unacceptable by voting out of office the worst abusers else its only going to get much worse.
RE: My Credit Predictions for Yeah the thought did cross my mind but with the exception of some few working at the most sleaziest of collection agencies this is not even a consideration amongst creditors. My personal agenda is to be able to make enough money on online investments enabling me to move to some warm tax-free country and live the "good life" and leave 'all this' behind.
