Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Do researchers for the Federal Reserve live on this planet?

Update: Friday's Post-Gazette had a report of another study on credit cards, one that seems more in line with real life.

According to today's Post-Gazette, the Federal Reserve has absolved credit card companies of responsibility for increasing personal bankruptcies. (See the article here.) But the report apparently contains this stunning sentence:

"Credit card issuers do not solicit customers or extend credit to them indiscriminately."

Huh? My five-year-old daughter and two-year-old son regularly receive unsolicited credit card offers. While I imagine that honest answers to the questions on the solicitations would lead to credit not being extended to them were they to reply, does anyone truly believe that credit card companies are not soliciting customers "indiscriminately"?

1 comment:

zoe p. said...

That is truly shocking. And I thought it was a commonplace truth that credit card companies actively solicit people already in debt . . . among my aquaintence those in debt receive more offers than those without . . . not that I understand how this would ever work in the credit card companies favor; debtors might spend more now but they aren't sure to pay up later . . . the mind reels.