ChangeinTerms.com

My most recent posts were months and months ago.  In them I explained that I have been busy meeting my ordinary obligations, teaching, commuting, and especially trying to catch-up on scholarly publishing.  I never will be completely ahead of the game, but I have managed to receive acceptance letters for four peer reviewed scholarly journal publications and two graduate teaching awards in the time that has transpired since I took a long break from the ChangeInTerms.com Website.  So, bad news for some banks that do not like the opinions expressed on this site about the abusive treatment of their customers: I have not died yet, and I am not blind to your bad behavior, and I am still watching you.  Moreover: Now I’m (Still) Coming After You.

Besides credit card customer abuses, impacting both consumer and small businesses, Chase is also still at the top of my own personal list of the most egregious abusers in the mortgage arena.  Because practically every other commercial aired on TV news channels seems to be from Chase, I don’t think it’s much of a leap to assert that the financial incentive its advertising schedule provides likely has an impact on what news coverage we do and do not see.  I think Chase’s advertising dollars have certainly had an influence in a tendency toward “buying off” the mainstream media.

As an example, I have only seen barely a smidgen of CNN coverage on what Chase did to military families.  In case you’ve already forgotten (for lack of coverage), I have not.  Moreover, foreclosing on ANY of them, and overcharging thousands of them was horrible.  Don’t you get it Chase?  We’re not accounts, we’re human beings.  Meanwhile, if I watch CNN for an hour or two, it repeats some stories over and over and over again in that same time-frame.  But on the day I saw a mention of Chase’s foreclosure story on military families, the story seemed to be very short, and I did not see it repeated again at all (which was glaringly noticeable given the typical incessantly repetitive style of CNN coverage I have observed).  Humm, go figure.  Time’s up.  The answer is obvious.  No media outlet is going to mess with one of its major advertisers.

My father (now deceased) was a fighter pilot and served his country honorably until his retirement as a Lieutenant Colonel.  As a small child, I remember his deployment in the Middle East.  In fact, my mom recently gave me a box that made me cry.  It was filled with military pins, patches, postcards from foreign countries, his Air Force gloves, and other reminders of his life and mine.  These military memorabilia from my dad also made me think of Chase.  I don’t think that Chase has exhibited the one value that is needed to justify its continuation as an institution: honor.  What Chase did to these military families turns my stomach.

I receive a number of subscriptions to newsletters and notices from consumer organizations.  One of these is from “Showdown in America,” which is organizing “two days of direct action on J.P. Morgan Chase and others” in Ohio on May 16 to 17, 2011.  It has also been helping to promote this video, by PICO National Network, and I am proud to do the same:

In other news, Bank of America, you’re “on my list,” too.  You’d better recognize that when you send change-in-terms notices to me (four recently), I will read them.  I’ll be getting back to you on that.

I’ve been speaking with a Wall Street Journal reporter who is working on an upcoming piece, and we could use your help.  This is a different reporter than the person who interviewed me earlier about “small business credit card woes,” Jane Kim (but she sits in close proximity to Jane, so “Hi” Jane!).

Here’s a little background information.  If you are familiar with this blog, then you already know that I am employed as an entrepreneurship professor at Western Carolina University.  I’ve been researching the use of credit cards by small businesses, entrepreneurial bootstrapping (starting a business from scratch with little or no capital), and similar topics in connection with scholarly writing for a number of years.  I am not a life-long academic, however (and “bootstrapping” is something I have done myself in the past, in the course of starting my own former businesses).

Remember the C.A.R.D. ACT?  You know, the one with loopholes that are “big enough to drive an armored truck through“?  The one that the credit card companies spent millions to lobby against (using as one source of funds, taxpayer’s own bailout money)?  The one that applies to fixed rate consumer cards, but exempted “business credit cards“  and variable rate cards (see the “loopholes” link cited above — credit card companies conveniently used the incredibly long waiting period before the C.A.R.D. Act kicked in to convert accounts to variable rates)?

Who does Congress think it’s fooling?  The banking industry “influenced” Congress to write the C.A.R.D. Act in such a way as to create the image of a victory for consumers (thanks to its largess and “concern for the commoners”).  Unfortunately, what our representatives really did was to draft and pass legislation with all the room the industry needed to wiggle out of giving consumers (and small businesses) the one thing they really needed: protection from a bunch of abusive bullies who to this day, have not changed their ways.  It’s still all about the bonuses!

Now, focusing on the topic of small business and professional credit cards, the aforementioned Wall Street Journal reporter whom I was speaking today (Jessica Silver-Greenberg) asked me to try to help her find some living examples of individuals who have been “switched” (either knowingly or without really being informed as to what the switcheroo was all about) from a consumer card to a business or professional card.  She subsequently emailed the following to me:

It was great to speak with you.  If you could post the following on your website, that would be fantastic.

So, I am looking for any one who has received a solicitation for a small business or professional card in the past year. I am interested particularly in cardholders who have been approached by credit card companies, either  by mail or by phone to switch into a professional/small business card from a personal credit card.

If you could post that on your blog, and tell anyone interested to email me at Jessica.silver-greenberg@wsj.com that would be wonderful.

Thank you so much.

Jessica

(Of course I will post it, Jessica — as long as credit card companies play “bait and switch,” I am delighted to do so.)  Although Jessica has offered her email address directly, I would be happy to forward anything to her on behalf of ChangeInTerms.com readers (and, I’d actually like to hear from you myself, if you respond to the request; comments are welcome below this post as well).

I have some catching up to do.  I missed my anniversary post, because I was busy at work, and getting to work (as I have been blocked by rock slides).  It looks like my long drive will continue through the spring semester.  Initial predictions of “a couple of weeks” to a “couple of months,” have now been extended to “several months to complete.”

So what was my “anniversary post” to be?  It’s not like I forgot the anniversary itself.  It was the day I opened my mail and read in sickening disbelief the change in terms notice that Chase sent to me.  On December 3, 2008 I responded.

I won’t forget.

No matter how much advertising Chase can buy, thereby suppressing the truth about its unethical actions in the mainstream media, I won’t let Chase forget, either.

I have plenty to do at work right now (it’s final exam week).  However, rest assured that I’ve been “making my list and checking it twice,” and I know all too well that banks and their lobbyists  have been very, very naughty, and not at all nice.  The popular uproar continues, while the the back-room negotiations with “our” elected officials continue to feed “fat cat” bankers at the expense of small businesses, taxpayers, the economy, you, my family, and me.  I’ll have more to say on all of these things.