Credit Card Companies Consumers in Debt
ABC News/Nightline interviewed two former employees that use to work for the credit card giant MBNA(Mellon Bank) Credit Card Company. MBNA was bought out by Bank of America in recent years.
Cate Columbo and Jerry Young both said that they were hired as Customer Service Representatives. They were put on the phone but not to necissarily help the customers with their concerns. There position was to “sell moneyâ€?. This meant that they would push the envelope to over extend credit to the credit card holders and allow MBNA to increase the clients limits to the extreme. Columbo & Young said that they knew the clients could never repay back all of the credit that was extended to them, but it didn’t matter to MBNA.
Columbo and Young said their goals were set to sell $25,000 an hour, which translates to $250,000 a day, $1 million a week, $4 million a month. MBNA made big money on the interest paid back. “The problem is that credit card companies push the debt on people who really can’t afford it because that’s the profitable thing for them to do,â€? says AFFIL executive director Jim Campen.
Columbo says it was a stressful job that she hated. It was hard for her to feel good about over loading others with debt at the benefit of MBNA.
Bank of America says that the past practices of MBNA are not their company practices. The point is made though, that credit card companies are in the business of making money by charging interest. MBNA didn’t care if a client was able to pay the whole debt off or not, it didn’t matter. Their bottom line was that by offering more debt, they made more money off of the interest.
We need to recognize the evil of credit card debt. It is an ever spiraling down ward trend to pull more money from our pockets to the bottom line of the credit card companies and their stock holders. We need to focus on living within our means and paying off our debt as soon as possible and not fall into the trap set by large credit card companies.
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