Can anyone tell me what things were like before the CC act of 09? I can google but I am more interested in personal encounters and experiences.
Was income a component of the cc apps? Were 10k limits common for people 18-24?
I am 18 and back then wasn't really interested in all that. Now I am myFICO in the morning myFICO at work myFICO crackhead.
;D
Rackham12
@OwNt wrote:Income was always a component of credit card applications. The major difference is that you can't use HHI anymore.
I can't speak for anybody else, but I found the banks were easier to get CLI's from. Of course, I might be thinking about before the economoy melted down and a lot of banks died or got acquired.
HHI?
Head of household income?
@bs6054 wrote:The CARD act tried to prevent abuse that some issuers did to some people. These included things such as "universal default": if you were late on card X, even if you had a perfect record on card Y, card Y could start charging you a penalty rate. Of course, if you have several cards and had a balance on each, this could become extremely expensive.
This now isn't allowed, and as you will see with each card, they have to clearly state the penalty rate and how long it can last.
Another practice was the way payments were applied, first to lower rate balances, leaving unpaid portions attracting the highest levels of interest. This has also been curtailed.
On the income side, the major change is that issuers are meant to make sure that income is sufficient, especially for those under 21. They need a consigner or proof of income. That said, both my student daughters have got credit cards from Amex, Capital One and Citi without any verification!
Put a lot of pressure on creditors to tighten up practices and basically cut off most of their bottom line which is people in debt. I read some terrible things about mostly young people where creditors would line up at College/University (ies) and sign up students on-campus and a lot of them went severely in debt and led to many bad things.
I am also a student and have not been verified for income except w/ Citi but then again my limits are very very small compared to others.
@Rackham94 wrote:Can anyone tell me what things were like before the CC act of 09? I can google but I am more interested in personal encounters and experiences.
Was income a component of the cc apps? Were 10k limits common for people 18-24?
I am 18 and back then wasn't really interested in all that. Now I am myFICO in the morning myFICO at work myFICO crackhead.
;D
Rackham12
Depending on how far back you want to go, if you Google "history of credit cards", there's various interesting reads, especially the detailed wikipedia entry that gives a great historical perspective on cards.
Some of us are oldtimers, having been around a long time in the credit world. We can remember what it was like to get that first AMEX Green (when it was the only AMEX available), or that Diners Club and Carte Blanche were, at one time, the top drawer cards, long before Centurion and Palladium. I'm sure some of us will remember the advent of the Discover Card back in the 80s (it premiered during the SuperBowl of 1986), and was a part of the Sears network at the time.
Back in the day, credit cards were just that...a means to make a purchase on credit, basically a short cut loan. The only real criteria that was considered were income and the (early) versions of the credit scores, back when a 620 was considered a good qualifying score. I remember when credit cards did not offer benefits, and also when they DID start offering benefits. I remember the release of the AMEX Gold card, it was the standard that everyone who was successful wanted to attain. There were, at one time, just pain vanilla "Visa" cards, no frills/no bank affiliation on the card, just "Visa". I'm sure others of the "old timers" around here may have memories of the "olden days"! In some respects, I do miss those days, when credit was much simpler and we didn't all worry about FICO scores and AMEX FRs! 
