If your bankster is putting the screws to you, don't assume there's nothing you can do

So you've found Superman's Fortress of Solitude, and think you're hot stuff, eh? Piece of cake! Now try finding the people at your credit-card issuer who can help you work out a reasonable payment arrangement! Not so cocky now, eh?

by Ken

THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT,
WITH EMPHASIS ON THE "SHORT"

If you've got a problem with your credit-card payments, you've probably heard that you should talk to your credit-card issuer to see if some relief can be worked out, and you've very likely tried that, and even had yourself bounced up to the magical "supervisor" level, only to be told, "Sorry, you're screwed." It's even possible to get this as an official reply, as the media people who've interviewed my friend Peter did when they contacted JP Morgan Chase for comment on his story. Sorry, nothing more we can do, except maybe by jacking his interest rate up from 4 to 19 percent.

However, if you're a Chase cardholder -- and very likely the same thing applies to holders of other credit cards, but we're talking specifically about Chase for the moment -- you may encounter a "supervisor" who will tell you, if you're persistent and/or lucky enough, or perhaps if you hit the correct level of sunspot activity (revealing, or not revealing, this information is apparently totally at the discretion of the "supervisor"), that there is another option.

Chase has a unit apparently more closely guarded than Superman's Fortress of Solitude, called Chase Proactive Solutions, which is known to be reachable, or at any rate has been known to be reachable (it could be this is one of those deals where they change the numbers every week, and you've gotta know a guy who knows a guy to get the new one) at the following numbers:

1-800-404-6220
1-877-890-2941

And remember, you didn't hear this from us. We don't know nuttin'. In all likelikhood, you don't remember where you got da numbers. Probly it was from, uh, Louie. Yeah, that's it, Louie toldja.

When we last heard from my friend Peter, he and his wife Gail were fighting for their lives trying to push back againt their credit-card company, JP Morgan Chase, which had suddenly and unilaterally decided to raise the monthly minimum payment on their three Chase credit cards by some two and a half times.

There was a lot of debt, but they were handling it, if just barely. And the debt hadn't come from binge-spending. It had come as part of the price of getting their son Justin through college. IN fact, the debt had been accumulated in what strikes me as actually rather prudent fashion, given the urgency of the need (you get only one shot at your kid's education -- do you skimp on it?) and the care with which the money had been parked at the exceedingly modest interest rates (Gail is pretty finnicky about such matters) that the banksters were begging us, their good customers, to take advantage of.

Hey, remember, it was their idea to offer those rates for the life of the loan! And now with all the defaults they're experiencing on credit-card debt, and with new regulations on how they can hassle customers scheduled to take effect, well, sometime in the future (how nice it was for them that they were given this handy grace period to get the dirty work out of the way!), they've had the bright idea of putting the screws even to customers who show no signs of defaulting.

Peter and Gail never missed a payment, and were paying in fact somewhat above the minimum. Until Chase announced that it was going to more than double the minimum payments, presumably with a view to either getting its money back quicker or driving them into default, where there would be other ways for the bank to make money, like renegotiating the loans at five times the interest rate.

Peter has been trying to make it clear that while of course he's fighting for himself and his family, he's also fighting for some principles here -- starting with the principle that they can't just do that, can they? From a legal standpoint, it's not clear whether they can or they can't; there are arguments both ways. From a practical standpoint, I guess they can do whatever they can get away with doing.

As I mentioned in my first piece on the subject, I have a personal stake here. Peter and Gail are two of my oldest friends. The day Justin was born, while Gail was doing the heavy lifting, I was with Peter. I've watched Justin grow up. In my admittedly biased opinion he's a remarkable kid. At the moment he's interested in brain research, and I expect him to do valuable work.

Tara Lynn Wagner, a reporter for our local cable news channel NY1, has done an update to her previous report. (The video clip is there along with a transcript, but the clip isn't embeddable.) Picking up the story more or less where I've left off:

Searching the Internet for answers, Meyer found whole blogs filled with posts from thousands of other Chase cardholders with similar circumstances. He read about and contacted the company's hardship division, which offered to lower his minimum payment but raise his interest rate from 4 percent to 19 percent.

Eventually, he came across two phone numbers that he says put him in touch with Chase Proactive Solutions. Within 20 minutes, the operator lowered his minimum payments and his interest rate and lifted a massive weight off his shoulders.

A spokesperson for Chase Card Services confirmed the existence of Chase Proactive Solutions, describing it as a specific unit designed to help customers who are experiencing financial hardship and "require a deeper discussion to identify the most appropriate solution."

In an email to NY1, the spokesperson again stated "We advise our customers who may need this consideration to contact Chase using the phone number on the back of their card to ensure their call receives the proper response."

However, Meyer maintains he was never told about this unit in any of his previous phone calls.

"Trust me, they don't give you anything. It's like trying to find the correct door in order to get in," he says.

Chase refused to verify the phone numbers Meyer used are the direct lines to this specific unit, but when NY1 called and asked if Chase Proactive Solutions had been reached, the operators confirmed it.

The numbers are 1-800-404-6220 and 1-877-890-2941.

They may not offer the same solution for everyone, but Meyer feels everyone should at least be able to find the same door.

And remember, if anyone asks where you got the numbers, Louie toldja.


UPDATE: AND WHAT ABOUT THE

INSURANCE COMPANY CROOKS?

A friend asked this question this morning-- "If someone dies because an insurance company knowingly breaks a contract in bad faith for their treatment, why isn't this considered manslaughter?" We've talked about health insurance rescission policies before and we saw how even a lock-step corporate shill for the Insurance CEOs like Texas Republican Joe Barton was repulsed by these savages. So why no special CEO fire squads? Or at least prison terms? -- Howie

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As the banksters put the screws to their victims customers, a whole lot of pain is being felt

Can Dudley Do-Right rescue bank customers from
the new relationship the banksters have established?

"If you were borrowing from Tony Soprano, and he says, 'you can pay me back on Friday,' he wouldn't send guys to collect on Wednesday, which is exactly what they are doing. All I am looking for is for them to live up to their end of the bargain."

-- Chase credit-card customer Peter Meyer, commenting to a NY1 cable-news reporter about the death grip Chase has laid on him and his wife Gail (see the link to the story and clip below)

by Ken

I'm sorry there doesn't seem any way to embed the video clip of this interview by NY1 reporter Tara Lynn Wagner, but I hope you'll click the link below to see it and read the story.

Click here to read the NY1 account and view the clip.

Basically, the story is this: Peter and Gail got word from Chase, with which they've had accounts for decades, that come August the minimum payment on their three credit cards is being increased from 2 to 5 percent of the balance. As it happens, they have some $25K of debt split among the three cards, parked there at low interest rates for the duration of the loans. All told, the increase will require them to somehow find an "extra" $800 a month.

There is no "extra" $800 a month. They had already cut back all their expenses wherever they could, and, no longer relying on Peter's business, in which they both worked, they have both taken outside jobs. "It might as well be $8,000 or $8 million," Peter told reporter Tara Lynn Wagner. "I literally couldn't find $800. There's just no way. I'm literally doing it from check to check to check and juggling as best we can."

One little detail the otherwise-earnest NY1 reporter left out: They didn't get into debt living the high life. They've been putting their kid through college. Justin graduated recently, and starts medical school in the fall. This is personal for me, because I was with Peter the day Justin was born. But the issue isn't just personal. It's happening all over the country, as the banksters put the squeeze to their victims -- er, customers.

NY1 reporter Wagner also interviewed Money magazine writer Carolyn Bigda.

"You just have to Google this issue and you see tons of messages on credit card forums and blogs all about this."

Bigda says with banks experiencing a record number of defaults, lenders are trying to get back as much of their money as they can –- and quickly. The minimum payment hike means the Meyers are essentially being forced to pay off their debt in half the time.

Why are the banksters doing this? Silly question, because they think they can. They aren't afraid of getting their money back from Peter and Gail. ("We're always over the minimum," Peter says. "We haven't missed any payments.") If anything, the banks are peeved that they're locked into those low interest rates -- you know, the big promotional rates the banks were shoving down our throats. Now, apparently, it's our fault for taking them at their word. One possibility: If they force Peter and Gail into default on their cards, or offer to renegotiate the balances, they can jack the rates way up.

A couple of other local TV stations have expressed interest in Peter and Gail's plight, and that's just here in the NYC are. But clearly this isn't particularly a NYC issue, and it isn't just a Chase issue, though Chase seems to have an especially large number of unhappy customers. (Peter tells me he's found a website for discontented Chase customers and has been in contact with a lawyer already looking into the feasibility of some sort of class-action suit.) Presumably, this is far from the only bankster depradation being practiced with a view to putting the squeeze to customers.

Peter recognizes that there are scads of bank customers being hurt even worse than he is, but he is, he says, fighting for his life. He plans to post the NY1 interview on YouTube as soon as gets the DVD of it, and he's looking for all avenues to pursue.

When I spoke to him on the phone this morning, he wasn't particularly charmed by the irony of finding an article on the front page of the NYT Business Section chronicling the gazillion-dollar campaign the banks are organizing to push back against the financial consumers' protection legislation currently being crafted in Congress.

In the banksters' eyes, of course, they are the victims in all this. Do we laugh or cry?

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