@Shogun wrote:
Yes, but remember, it wasn't MasterCard back then. It was MasterCharge It was like Amex back years ago. You had to pay it off every month.
Master Charge was also a revolver like BankAmericard. I didn't get one until after it changed to MasterCard in the late 70's. My BankAmericard was renamed Visa shortly after I got it. They didn't re-issue it with the new brand until it expired. I recently ran across a "bill" from those times. It had a $700 CL, 18% APR, and was on one of those old fashioned 80 column Hollerith cards with the punched holes. $700 was pretty usable back then.
BofA was notorious in the 60's for mass mailing BankAmericards to their entire customer base and more. At the time there was no fraud protection and there was a weird lien kind of thing where the bank had an ownership claim in anything you bought until the charge was paid. BofA lost a lot of money doing that and a lot of consumers as well since they discovered cards had been "liberated" from mailboxes and fraudulently used. They didn't mass mail them to students though and by the time I was working it was roughly as hard to get cards starting out as it is now.
I have reestablished credit over the last couple years
so my moniker is, well, rather out of date.
WM Discover $1800, WF Plat 12k, Chase Freedom Siggy18k, Amex Plat (60k H/B), Citi AA EWMC 25k