If you don’t believe me google the phrase “Showdown in Chicago”, click on the image tab, and you will see the logo in a much smaller size. Notice you CANNOT read it? That means the visual impact has been muted.

The letters should be white or off white, and then they would have impact. Right now the image looks smoggy, grungy, and a place I don’t want to go to, and the dark blue lettering is why.

Perhaps on the brighter LCD monitors it doesn’t look so garish, I am viewing the ad on a monitor that was made in the late 90’s by Sony that sold for 5,000 dollars when new.

I bought it for 12 bucks! But the monitor shows the true gray scale of the images and unless you have an overly bright monitor, the image is sucking the life out of the images around it, not just itself.

These are educated criminals at work, and sadly, if you follow Barack Obama’s career, he did similar things. Barack Obama got half of his political competitors disqualified because the signatures did not match the printed versions. I’m serious.

The people in Barack Obama’s camp come from Wall Street, and I am a registered democrat saying this stuff!

In my opinion Chase Bank has a vulture predatory mentality in which they wait to buy for a penny on the dollar rather than offer the targeted victim a glass of water so they can survive and thrive.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091014/ap_on_bi_ge/us_earns_jpmorgan_chase

Incidentally, Chase has gone on record that it will NOT follow Bank of America and Discover’s example of not increasing interest rates before the CARD act goes into effect. I am paraphrasing, but essentially the PR statement was that Chase will ensure that it is in compliance at the time the act becomes law. In other words, Chase will extract every last dime it can from its customers, by any legal, albeit unethical, means until the last possible moment. Why? – Because it can.

I think this should be Chase’s motto – BECAUSE WE CAN!

The Showdown in Chicago group did not find me. Rather, one of our ChangeInTerms.com friends sent me a link to that organization. I emailed, did not immediately hear anything back, and called. My call was returned later the same day. I was told that their staff is stretched extremely thin. I understand that. There are very few organizations that can match the firepower of big banks and Congress, and the FED, all of which ignore us (with the help of the media not wanting to step on any toes), and neither starting nor funding a nonprofit is easy, especially these days — nonprofits are struggling.

From the standpoint of design, we could all critique each others work. After all, looking at Chase’s advertising news release for its new “ink” card, for example, some of the top marketing firms in the world have been hired to develop and disseminate that campaign in major media outlets (this explains why these same media outlets only cover us, reluctantly). I have some design skills, but I can’t “outgun” such an enormous budget or the staffing of these firms. Neither can you.

The ChangeInTerms.com site, if I were to offer my own self-critique, is in need of a redesign. The amount of content has grown to the point where it is becoming unwieldy to find information. I can tell, because people who arrive here for the first time make suggestions such as “contact the OCC” (which is not concerned with consumers’ issues — clearly evidenced by its consistent tendency to side with Chase and other banks); “file a class action lawsuit”; or “contact the BBB” — these things have all been explored by those of us who have been fighting from the beginning (like you and me).

Here is my point: we who are fighting, are truly a ragtag group, and whatever we do to band together is, as a result, not necessarily going to be “elegant” from the point of view of aesthetics. That being said, we are nevertheless making a difference. The people on Main Street are completely aware of the pain that credit card companies have been causing, and as I had written in an earlier post, credit card related complaints have now reached the top of the list relative to consumer complaints in general.

When I get frustrated, I look to the fact that your sites, and others like ChangeInTerms.com are at the top of search engine results. In other words, we may not get the coverage from mainstream “corporate” controlled media that we want, but the common man and woman knows the truth: credit card companies are engaged in an all-out assault on consumers and small businesses.

This is another subject, but I will make the observation that because of technology, the distribution of knowledge and information is no longer controlled — as it has been in the past — by big publishing companies, the recording industry, or other media such as TV and newspapers; people are getting their information from the Internet, and we are part of what is in effect, “the new media.” This is good news. We are reaching our audience, even if we don’t see ourselves on TV, in newspapers, magazines, and other mainstream media as often as we might like.

Here is my suggestion: I will forward an email to you with contact information for people who are behind the Showdown in Chicago organizing effort, and I would encourage you to also go to its site and fill out the form to be a supporter (that’s how ChangeInTerms.com got on its list of supporters). You can make your own decision to use its image(s), or not, but I hope you will choose to support the “cause” itself relative what they are trying to do. The ABA is trying very hard — and will probably be successful — in getting its way with Congress, if we don’t try to fight with everything that we’ve got!

For anyone else (without a blog, for instance), there are three ways on the site to “Take Action,” and I would encourage you to do whatever you can.

Take care, Alessandro.

Usually one of my four protest blogs shows up on page one of virtually any google search with the name Chase Bank in it, yet I have to come here to learn about all of these groups. (better here than nowhere, don’t get me wrong).

What is the point of having a blog if none of the protest groups ever bother to stop by and say hi?

Are you sure we disagree? I do think that you are correct: there is a systemic problem. I also think that the “safety net” is nonexistent. For example, while there may be whistle blower laws, the practical reality is that one who engages in such an act will probably have a very hard time finding new employment!

Thus, I am not sure where we may disagree. I am merely saying that a corporation consists of “nothingness” without people. This is based upon definitions that have to do with the legal form of organizations.

But, it’s not necessary that you agree with everything that I say. My comments on this site are merely my opinion!

Take care.

If problems arise, they are associated with ethics and the values of people within any corporation. A small thing that has to do with students: in their writing, I often find that I must correct references to corporations as “they.” Corporations are an “it,” an entity unto themselves, not a “they”: Chase has been extremely abusive, with its imposition of new terms, which I believe was a purposeful effort to coerce customers into giving up their promotional rates.

Hence, people within organizations of any kind may do good things, or bad things, but core values drive their behavior, one way or another. Corporations are not inherently good or bad, or abusive or kind, unto themselves (but the actions of the people within them, either enhance or tarnish the corporation’s brand).

I don’t know that I have the time to to take on health care as an issue (I expect that ending credit card abuse may require the rest of my life, although I certainly hope not). It’s nice to hear from you. Take care.