In the San Francisco Bay Area? I spoke with KPIX CBS 5, and they would like your participation in a group studio interview

After receiving several private emails from visitors to the ChangeInTerms site, I sent an email to KPIX CBS 5 and subsequently heard back and had a phone conversation with Investigative Producer Abigail Sterling. 

Before I lose anyone with my discussion, let me first address the announcement portion of this present post.  I told Abigail that I did not want to be presumptuous in publishing email addresses and phone numbers on this site without permission, but she was fine with that.  Accordingly, here is the announcement (in other words, if YOU are in the Bay Area, please contact Dora or Abigail and try to attend — so the announcement is being posted for anyone who can possibly attend):

Thank you for your response to Anna Werner’s story on credit card hassles, and for sharing your own story.  We would like to invite you to join us for a group interview here at our studio in San Francisco on March 10th, to be aired as a follow up.  If you are available on that day please let us know what times work best for you, and we will try to arrange a time that works for as many people as possible.  If you are out of the area or unable to participate for any reason, we still appreciate the comments you shared with us. Please contact myself, Dora Ruhs, or Abigail Sterling, contact information below.

Thank you,

Dora Ruhs
KPIX CBS 5
theodora@pacific.net
415-765-8815

Abigail Sterling
KPIX CBS 5, Investigative Producer
asterling@kpix.cbs.com
415-765-8972

Abigail and I talked about several relevant points on the phone yesterday, some of which many of you are already familiar.  Here are some of the main concerns that I have (wish I could afford to accept the invitation Abigail extended to me to come to the studio):

1) Chase provided no “opt out” despite Congressional testimony assuring our representatives that Chase played “fairly” by allowing customers to not accept a change and pay under the old terms.  I called this lying before Congress.  Others may want to use a softer word like “misrepresentation,” but given that the hearings were all about avoiding new regulations from the point of view of these Chase executives, I feel no need to soft-peddle any characterization of what these executive did: they told Congressional representatives one thing, and then Chase turned right around and applied the exact opposite treatment to customers who were not provided with an opt out relative to this change in terms under discussion.  Too bad, I doubt that they’ll go to jail for perjury (too much power and influence in the “elite member of society club” for that). 

2) As it relates to the above, paying the entire balance “on demand” on approximately 30 days notice is not an opt out.  A few of points to be made here:

• First, I think may Chase like to use the word “option” in its PR releases and letters because it is confusingly similar to the sound of an opt out. 
• Secondly, if you can pay off a loan “on demand” on short notice, such as a car loan, or a mortgage, or a larger long-term “fixed APR Until the balance is paid in full” loan that you may have had with Chase, you always had that “option” (Dorothy, just click your ruby-red heels, send in the entire balance, and say, ”I want to be free, I want to be free, I want to be free of Chase”). 
• Third, were someone at Chase to read this and assert that my facts weren’t straight regarding “approximately 30 days” as was done to an academic colleague on his blog (thanks for your support, Professor Ganem), recently, this is where I get to turn the tables and have the same kind of fun that credit card companies enjoy when they screw customers for being 30 seconds late.  I am referring to the USPS mail, and timing, and when things are sent versus when things are received, and last but not least, playing games with due dates (and notices), and the fact that a Chase attorney argued that its customers should only need 15 days notice, while at the same time telling the FED it needed 18 months notice to comply with new rules under Regulation Z.  I received my change in terms notice (a statement “stuff-it” surprise) around the first of December, 2008 (this is what prompted me to write Chase Card Services CEO Gordon Smith on December 3, 2008, and also to write the “How Chase Card Services Stole Christmas” eBook); the changes took effect “on or after the first day of your [my] billing cycle that includes [included] January 1, 2009.” 
• This present item also speaks to the mentality, “we can screw customers any way we want, as long as we give them notice.”  

3) Chase really does want to play “look over there” and deflect attention relative to the word “fee” or “service charge.”  As I stated in my email to Anna Werner:

You need to know that some aspects of your report are misleading (and Chase would like to keep it that way):

“Plus Chase also added a service charge of $10.00 per month on both cards.”

Journalists have evidently not recognized that the so-called $10 per month Chase “fee” or “service charge,” as stated in the notice, “is a finance charge.”  This may sound like simple semantics, but it is a pivotal fact in the numerous lawsuits we are tracking on our site (9 announced, and I am regularly receiving communications directly from law firms that may be working on even more — looks like Mr. Sauer’s case may be number 10).

Chase would like you, as a journalist, to use the word “fee,” (or “service charge”) because had it not made a mistake in its own fine print by stating that the new service charge “is a finance charge,” then it could possibly have gotten away with this.  Because it “is a finance charge,” Chase has violated the terms of a promotional rate that it promoted as “fixed APR Until the balance is paid in full” loans.  As far as I know, I am the first person to point this out in a certified letter sent to Chase Card Services CEO Gordon Smith (on my site; see the category “Correspondence” on the right hand side navigation links).

As is alleged in the pending lawsuits, and I have every reason to believe a “reasonable juror” would agree, the change in terms document states, “and it is a finance charge” on panel 2, and on first side of the document, it states, “The FINANCE CHARGES section of your Agreement is amended…These charges are finance charges” (please note the all caps print, I have not added any emphasis, the document itself presented the text this way in its original form).

 4) Another part of the previous coverage, was very problematic beyond the instance of the individual the reporting profiled:

“When CBS 5 Investigates asked Chase about the changes, the company said it changed those rules for customers who ’have carried large balances for over two years’ and made ‘little progress in paying them off.’”

This is my response (clearly demonstrating that Chase is spinning another misrepresentation before the media):
 
http://www.changeinterms.com/2009/02/20/chase-aimed-at-account-holders-who-were-only-paying-the-minimum-someone-must-need-new-eyeglasses/

5) One of my very biggest concerns, is for small business people (and how squeezing them right now is a very bad idea for the economy and any hope we may have for a recovery).

6) Banks lack (competent, ethical) leadership, and they are actually making the situation far worse all in the name of avoiding risk and protecting themselves against defaults.  How does raising a payment from $400 per month to $1000 per month, for instance, help that customer avoid defaulting?