Buy Premium Bird Seed? Your Credit Card Co Knows You Pay Your Bills. They Know More About You...

[KittyWampus]

then you know about yourself.


Buy premium bird seed? Your credit card company knows you'll pay your bill
Buy chrome accessories for your car? Your credit card company knows you have a greater chance of paying late.

Credit card companies also know when you log on and check your balance.

Checking your balance at 1:00 in the afternoon? You should be at work.
Checking your balance at 1:00 in the morning? You might be worrying how you're going to pay your bills

Suddenly using your credit card to pay grocery bills? Not good....

On today's Planet Money:

Credit card companies have decided to become your friend, before it's too late. If they chat you up instead of sounding threatening when you call, they figure, you might pay them back first. That's the message from New York Times reporter Charles Duhigg, who just published What Does Your Credit Card Company Know About You?

While they're getting friendly with you, credit card companies have managed to learn a thing or two about exactly your ways. For starters, they're never happier than when customers buy premium bird seed, or put their kids' pictures on their credit cards. But if they hang out at Sharx, an upscale pool hall in Montreal? That's bad news.


Listen to NPR segment here:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money /

...........................................................


What Does Your Credit-Card Company Know About You?

A 2002 study of how customers of Canadian Tire were using the company's credit cards found that 2,220 of 100,000 cardholders who used their credit cards in drinking places missed four payments within the next 12 months. By contrast, only 530 of the cardholders who used their credit cards at the dentist missed four payments within the next 12 months.

snip


So credit-card firms are changing their business plans. Gone are the days of handing out cards willy-nilly and hoping that the cardholders who dutifully pay up will offset the losses from those who default. Today companies are focusing on those customers most likely to honor their debts. And they are looking for ways to convince existing cardholders that if they only have enough money to pay one bill, it’s wiser to pay off their credit card than, say, the phone.

Put another way, credit-card companies are becoming much more interested in understanding their customers’ lives and psyches, because, the theory goes, knowing what makes cardholders tick will help firms determine who is a good bet and who should be shown the door as quickly as possible.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/magazine/17credit-t.h...

[WeDidIt]

1. Keep a debit card and only pay with cash you take out of ATM machines.n/t

[Occulus]

21. Use the debit card provided by your local cedit union.

Kill the banks. Become a member of a CU, transfer your balances, and enjoy their more understanding attitude.

I love my credit union. They make things very easy, they help me whenever and however they can, their terms on loans are very acceptable, and they treat me right as a customer.

Seriously. Ditch the banks. Move to a credit union if at all possible.

[Skittles]

2. idiocy

I check my balance at 3:00 PM because I work all f***ing night

[KittyWampus]

8. plus, you're smarter than the average bear. PLUS, you'll kick their ass

[From The Ashes]

24. idiocy pt 2

I check my balances at 2am because that's when I get home from work! Morons!

[BrklynLiberal]

3. I heard that this AM also. Scary...huh? BIG BROTHER takes many forms.

The damn banks who took bailouts from the govt are now crying poverty and say they will not be able to extend credit if they cannot charge usurious interest rates!!!
I am beginning to feel that the banks/brokerages/insurance conglomerates should have been allowed to die a quiet death..whatever the results.

[KittyWampus]

5. Corporations use psychology to get us to buy, pay, submit to authority... psychology is black magic

in a very real way.

[BrklynLiberal]

16. Back in the day they used "subliminal". Now they do not have

to be so subtle about trying to manipulate the public.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Them boys knowshit... let me explain

they are going through AVERAGE profiles

Some of us really throw them OFF

[KoKo]

6. Just as many of us use Google to search folks, and Face Book to Connect

and now Twitter to Tweet...of course our Credit Cards want to know where we are and track us to target us for "user preferences."

It's something that most of us DU'ers would applaud. If we are here on DU we already know that we are searched and catalogued as to the "mouse tracks" to other sites we vist, what we post and the links we post which all show our "preferences."

We are monitored from cradle to grave these days. Anyone can be found if one is a savvy searcher on Google and if you want to go deeper go to "paid search" sites that the NYT/WaPo and others use.

Hey...our lives are an open book...we can be body searched and our minds scoured for thought.

Why do you object to that? It's Capitalism at it's finest. And, we all now know there's no US Constitution that is really protecting us. That was just a scam after the first hundred years.

It's all out there. And ain't PROFIT GRAND?

[TheCowsCameHome]

7. Do they know I won a DUzy?

Is nothing sacred?!?!?

[SoCalDem]

9. As a matter of fact they DO.. and that means they know you are a commie pinko librul

and may waste money by donating to worthless causes like world hunger or poverty or even to support a "Muslin" president who wasn't even born here

[TheCowsCameHome]

11. Well, I hope they get my name right.

I'd hate to be labeled a conservative or something vile like that.

[SoCalDem]

10. They must LOVE me.. I charged $950 within 3 weeks at the vet

for our sick kitty.. I have ONE card (Discover) and decided to use it, instead of from our savings account, since it was a rather large "pill" to swallow in one gulp.. I've sent them $500 already and will pay the rest when the bill cones in a week

[DJ13]

12. REAL CC reform would include preventing them from monitoring purchases

So Congress....?

<crickets>

[Occam Bandage]

14. Why?

That lets them adjust their actuarial tables, and fine-tune the distribution of risk. I fail to see how banning that would be remotely comparable to, say, imposing a limit on rate hikes.

[DJ13]

15. Because like everything else they will take it too far

When they get paid why do they need to invade privacy?

If they dont get paid they know what to do.

Seriously, rationalizing a program like this is little different from the excuses after the fact as to why banks went too far with leverage in gaming the system with the derivatives that blew up.

These folks dont know moderation.

Suppose Home Depot flags as making you an increased risk, but you dont know that, so one Sunday afternoon you finally decide to fix the toilet like your SO has been wanting for months.

Now YOU'RE A RISK.

Through NO FAULT OF YOUR OWN, now the CC company decides that your "profile" no longer deserves that nice 10% interest rate you've had since you got the card years ago.

Next thing you know they demand 30%.

But hey, its just business so dont take it personal right?

[BrklynLiberal]

17. Zactly!!!!

[Occulus]

22. It's their power

Suppose your credit rating is suddenly dinged because you check your balance at 1PM and make no transaction prior to midnight, except for two days a week. Further suppose that's far enough of a ding to your credit rating to get landlords to refuse to rent to you. Even further, suppose those same landlords check lists maintained by those same credit card companies that designate certain activity patterns as 'suspicious'?

Oh. Suddenly, you can't rent an apartment. As a renter myself, these practices scare the shit out of me. I work afternoons, but the company whose logo is on my credit union's debit card doesn't know that. And sure, I pay some bills late- but those payment dates that suddenly change don't help at all.

These companies are getting desperate to avoid the regulations they should have been under in the first place, and they're doing everything they can to legitimize their own institutionalized abuse of their own serfs customers. This cannot continue.

We need to start telling these companies that they have gone too far, the party is over, and they have to start issuing fair terms. I'd bind them to the interest rate at time of original issue for all cardholders for a period not less than five years (including "introductory" rates) as punishment for their actions until now if I could do so.

After all, they deserve some punishment.

[Blue_Tires]

13. k+r

[MadHound]

18. This is old news, such data mining has been going on for a long while

And this is but one of the sources that comprise a portrait of you. Debit cards, checks, discount/club cards, anything that can put used to put a name to your purchasing habits is now being used to construct a portrait of you and your life. Not to mention your credit score, online shopping, bills, taxes, driving record, insurance records all these streams of data put together to create a window into your life. Cheerful thought, eh. All of this information available to those with either the right connections or the right amount of money.

Oh, and don't forget those fine little tracking devices that most Americans willingly place on themselves, you know, cell phones, GPS units, Onstar.

Most Americans seem perfectly content to be scrutinized by a corporate Big Brother. Truly sad

[bertman]

19. Perfectly content? I don't think so. Most likely they feel powerless to change it.

But why in the world would anyone feel that way?





Maybe we should ask Senator Dick Durbin.

[KittyWampus]

27. if you read the articles, they aren't just compiling data, it's used to tailor their communications

with customers now. They use profiles to shape how they interact with each person. Threaten, cajole, lend a sympathetic ear? They know which approach will most likely yield a payment.

[MadHound]

29. I know all too well what they're doing with this data,

And like I said earlier, this is nothing new. The same general principles have been in place for a couple of decades now, the only thing that's changed is that the amount of data has increased.

Having (briefly) worked inside the belly of the beast, having known people who also worked there, I have an intimate familiarity with the data mining operations that CC corporations run. That some major news outlets are finally recognizing what's going on is the only surprising thing going on here.

Thirty years ago, a person's corporate profile was generally limited to approximately 235 defining features, the number of holes that could be punched out on one of those punch cards. Thus peoples' profiles were rather fuzzy. Now that there are multiple information streams, and computers to compile all that information quickly, those profiles have become much clearer. And the truly sad thing is that far too many Americans have become willing participants in their own profiling by using credit cards for everything, by using those discount/club cards, etc. etc.

This is one of many reasons I don't own a credit card, and frankly the American public would be better off if nobody did. But sadly, too many Americans have gotten caught in that consumerist mindset, and have put their lives on plastic. The one good thing about this current economic downturn is it might just forcibly wean people off the plastic. One can hope.

[Lex]

20. and people who drive old Volvos give more to charity, etc. etc.

they've been doing this kind of market research for a very, very long time

[arikara]

23. This is why I like to use good old cash or barter as much as possible

and screw them over by paying off any credit cards in full every month. Bastards.

[snot]

25. There's no reason we couldn't form unions to provide services we want but that are now being used to

invade our privacy.

E.g., CITIZEN-OWNED versions of facebook, flicker, twitter, etc.

They can't be all that expensive to run?

[WolverineDG]

26. I just love the guy who says he felt good by "helping" someone

after he charged him $2000 more than what the bank was willing to settle for so he could get a bigger commission.

dg

[grace0418]

28. I must really piss them off because I charge everything I can possibly charge in order to

get the airline miles. Then I pay the balance off in full every month. I'm what they call a deadbeat.