Quote:
Originally Posted by nekokami
Two days to get your credit limit raised? Around here, you could get a new card with a ridiculously high limit in about 10 minutes, I think.  |
Or less.
In the US. at least, the credit card market is saturated, with just about everyone that
should have a credit card possessing more than one. So CC companies are always trying to raid each others market share, and we get continual "pre-approved" offers in the mail for additional cards and upgrades on existing ones. I think we have about a dozen different cards at this point, and the total available credit is somewhere in the low six figures. We actually
use about three of them, with another a parking spot for transferred balances at 0% APR to pay down outstanding debt. My SO is a bit boggled at it. I just say "We have credit cards. We charge things. We run up balances, which carry finance charges. We pay them off faster than required. We're exactly what they like!" And the SO tells me our credit score is close to the top possible, so no surprise we get more offers every week. I've had the occasional thought about saying yes to
all of them, just to see how many cards we could accumulate, but figure that would be more trouble than it's worth.
I used to work in a consumer credit operation at a bank. Our piece did mortgage lending and revolving credit, not CCs, but we saw the fun. Like everyone else, the bank had fairly strict credit criteria, but periodically, someone would decide to try to boost market share and/or revenue by loosening the standards and issuing more cards. All would be well until the wave of delinquencies and charge-offs as the bad debt chickens came home to roost, everyone got a sharp reminder about why we hadn't issued credit cards to these folks previously, and the criteria would be tightened again.
Our area's chief credit officer was a chap we nicknamed the Godfather. Al had forgotten more about credit than most folks would ever learn, and was listened to with respect by those who knew him. He would get quite snarky about such things. We thought it a pity the CC side wasn't under his purview.
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Dennis