Credit Card Pusher Man.

[kentuck]

Remember when you got your first credit card?

I recall that my first credit card was an American Express and had either a $500 or $1000 dollar limit on it. It was almost like a status symbol of sorts because a lot of people did not have a card and could not get one. Little did I know that I would soon move on to harder stuff.

Not long after came a Visa card, a Master Card, and finally got a Discover card. It didn't take long to max them out if you were a common working man in the 1980's and 1990's. You discovered that you could pay off American Express with your new Visa Card and when that was maxed out, you discovered that you could pay off the Visa with your new gold Master Card. You could now get $25,000 of the clean stuff.

Just when I was ready to go into withdrawals, a new dealer came into town with the best stuff ever. I could re-finance my mortgage and pay off all my bills, including all my credit cards. It was the mainline rush I was looking for.

All this time, my wages had stagnated. My employer just did not feel the need to give the same raises he did in the past, especially after the Carter inflation and the deep Reagan recession. So the credit cards and the mortgage re-financing provided the money I was looking for and that I needed.

Unfortunately, in September of 2008, the dealer got busted. I could no longer get any more easy credit. I could not re-finance my home because it was worth less than what it was when I previously re-financed. It was cold turkey time.

The last I heard, the dealer was back on the Street and making more money than ever. He served no time. He left millions of people desperate and hooked on his stuff and he walked away smiling...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMqVrUSz62o

[NYC_SKP]

1. I remember my first card, Amex, 1984, but it didn't have a limit.

You just had to pay the full balance every month.

Not a bad deal compared to the more predatory offers around today.

[w0nderer]

5. charge card

that's what amex started out as

charge card (short term (1 month)) credit cards
ie have to pay in full the same period

credit cards all have revolving debt

[aikoaiko]

2. My father cosigned my first Chase VISA for me when I was 16 in 1984.

He wanted me to use it to pay for things and emergencies in order to start building a credit score.

Mostly I used it to buy concert tickets in high school, and books in college.

Ahh, the good old days.

[peacebird]

3. I was lucky - my folks saved and paid cash for everything except the house.

They taught me to do the same. We had credit cards for ease and emergencies BUT we paid them off and never ever carried debt on them for more than a couple months.
I still have one credit card through my credit union, many are offered to me, but I keep just the one. I am very very lucky to have had such wise people as my parents. And I passed the lessons on to my son.

[supernova]

4. My first card was Chase MasterCard

back around 84 or so, right after I graduated college. I remember that. It started out as a $500 limit cc, which I was fine with. I never maxed it out. Only bought small stuff, usually less than $100/month.

Then I got married.

Worst mistake because the boy at the time didn't really understand credit and didn't understand keeping a job. I stupidly ran up the balance thinking he would help me pay it off. We were married, right? I got cash advances because he was in grad school, not working. Stupid. But hey, I was young in in love.

I financed our wedding, thinking that he would help me. He didn't. By this time I had a $5K limit.

The marriage didn't last but the debt did. I kicked him to the curb ten years later. Paid off the debt by 1997. And yes, Chase was just as greedy, ruthless and abusive as they are now.

I've been clean and sober ever since. I intend to stay that way. I don't care what enticements the lone shark industry tries to dish out. I won't bite.

[GoCubsGo]

6. The weekly credit card offers have resumed at my house.

I used to get them every other day in the mail back before the banking fiasco, along with regular loan offers from the likes of the now-defunct Washington Mutual. I guess these crooked sons of bitches haven't gotten the message that I HAVE NO FUCKING JOB. I got laid off in mid-2007, and I have been scraping by on savings (which is long gone), temp jobs, and gifts/loans from my family since then. I have been able to pay my bills and mortgage, at least for now. I have been able to keep my credit score really high, so I guess that's all they are looking at. Meanwhile, American Express has extended my credit limit by ten grand. It blows my mind.

It's a damn good thing I'm home to see the mail get delivered. I found out that my former employer posted the personal information of all who it employed during 2002 on the Internet, including our SSNs. I can get to all those credit card offers before someone filches them from my mail box.

[surrealAmerican]

7. That would have been sometime in the early 1980s ...

... when I was a student. It was a convienience, and as long as I paid the balance in full, there were no fees or interest. Perhaps because I was already scared to death by the amount of debt I was running up in student loans, I never charged anything I could not have paid for at the end of the month. I was also lucky not to have any unexpected major expenses that might have tempted me to break that rule.

[kentuck]

9. You were the exception...

Unexpected expenses and careless spending left millions in a deep hole. The banks knew what they were doing from the beginning, in my opinion.

[kentuck]

10. delete

dupe

[lonestarnot]

8. Jail the thieves!

K & R!

[Brickbat]

11. I said GODDAMN the pusher man.

[lbrtbell]

12. I paid medical/dental bills with my credit cards

I would not have been able to afford the care any other way. Scary statement on the condition of our health care system, and that was going on during the 1980's.

[kentuck]

13. This was when it all started....

and it started with the easy credit of credit cards and ended with credit default swaps and the crash of our economy, in my opinion.