I hope you are sitting down. Take a deep breath …breathe. Just when you think things can’t get any worse, you wake up to find more concerning news on the consumer market and ultimately the economy. According to MSN.Com, “good credit” consumers are complaining, that Bank of America is playing unfair! Bank of America is more than doubling interest rates on credit cards even if you have been paying off your credit card balances and there is no deterioration in your credit score. Bank of America is giving no explanations for these increases, according to the five letters that were obtained by BusinessWeek.
In the past, consumers who did fall behind on their payments but kept their credit scores in good standing order did find their interest rates rising. However, now we are finding out that Bank of America is targeting some consumers who have not fallen behind on payments, but have good credit scores.
Analyst are saying that Bank of America is doing this to help improve their earnings going forward because of the poor performance in their fourth quarter earnings which was mainly the result of loan-loss in reserves for consumer credit, including rising card charge-offs and write downs in mortgage-related securities. To read further details on the MSN.COM article, click “here”. This will surely cause more hardships for consumers as they are already tapped out as the result of higher consumer debt they are already carrying.
Ok, now have a sip of that coffee, and say “I am ok“, three times. I have more news to share. On top of this, according to the LA TIMES.COM, Countrywide Financial is sending out 122,000 letters to customers informing them that they can no longer borrow off of their home equity lines of credit. To read further details on this article, click”here”.
What is going on here? What are the banks telling us? Is this a trend starting? This surely seems that the middle to lower income class people are the ones that are getting targeted. Our voices need to be heard and they need to be heard loudly. When you go vote for the next President, you need to start thinking why our economy is in this mess; why weren’t the banks more regulated; and who could be the best candidate to get us out of it? No matter who gets in, this is a problem that is not going to go away quickly and could ultimately be the straw that broke the camel’s back. The consumer is what has held this economy up since the year 2000, not corporate profits. If the consumer is tapped out, what will keep us from going into a deep recession? We can only print so much money before we all have to pay the piper, no matter what income class you are in. Think about it!
Source: MSN.COM, LATIMES.COM
