Today I received an absolutely hilarious “offer” in the mail for a credit card. The average credit card offer is silly enough (for the “average” consumer) — “pay us 10% APR to borrow money from us, and we’ll nickel-and-dime you to death on the fees as you go,” but this one takes the cake. This is the kind of thing that people receive when they’re just starting out — newly-minted adults (18 years old, freshly allowed to sign legal contracts) who don’t know any better. Still, I wanted to make sure First PREMIERE Bank (spelling and capitalization theirs — I’m eager to ensure Google catches this opinion piece about them) gets all the attention and ridicule it deserves for actually trying to pull this shit on people.

What makes me sick is thinking some people actually fall for this. This kind of trickery is exactly why the banks these days are discovering fewer and fewer of their customers can actually pay their debts. It’s a sickening kind of money grab, and we’re all beginning to turn into turnips.

The Actual Scam

Okay, enough mindless ranting — time to rant in a focused manner. First, the good news:

• It’s a real “MasterCard” — you can bust this thing out just about anywhere and buy stuff with it.
• For the first year (12 months), the interest rate is 0% (don’t worry, though, they will still get a shitload of money from you this first year). After that, it goes up to 9.9%. Not actually terrible.
• Astonishingly, the “penalty interest rate” is only 19.99% instead of the bat-shit crazy (and industry-standard) 29.99%.

That’s the end of the good news. Now for the bad news.

This is a fucking expensive credit card to hold. There are fees for everything. These people pull out all the stops, and that zero percent interest for the first year gets buried fast amidst all this other shit. Mind you, none of the fees are optional. Think I’m exaggerating? The paperwork (the invitation letter and the fine-print sheet) lays it out in black and white:

If you are assigned the minimum credit limit of $250 the available credit limit will be $71 ($51 if you choose the additional card option).

You read that right: they are going to slap you with $179 in fees just to open the fucking account. If you sign up for this card, and get approved, and you only ever use it to buy a pack of gum, you will owe this bank $179 plus the price of the gum plus interest plus monthly maintenance fees plus any penalties for late payments.

Here’s a rundown of all the fees they assess for this card:

• “Account setup fee” of $29. One-time fee, assessed when you open the account.
• “Program fee” of $95. One-time fee, assessed when you open the account.
• “Annual fee” of $48. Assessed every year, starting when you open the account (that is, you pay this in addition to the setup and program fees when you open the account).
• “Monthly servicing fee” of $84. Billed monthly at $7 per month, starting when you open the account.
• “Additional card fee” of $20. One-time fee, assessed when you request a second card for another authorized user.
• “Express delivery fee” of $25. One-time fee, per card, assessed if you report a card lost or stolen, or if you request a replacement. It does not appear to be charged for the first issue of cards.
• “Autodraft fee” of $11 per transaction for payments made by their autodraft service. It’s $7 per transaction for payments made via their voice response system or the internet.
• “Return item charge” of $25 per returned payment instrument (i.e. bounced check).
• “Internet access fee” of $3.95. One-time fee, assessed when you first access the account via the internet (to pay the bill or see transactions).
• “Credit limit increase fee” of $25. This fee is assessed every time they review your account for a credit limit increase and approve the limit increase.
• “Account maintenance fee” of $3 per month for closed accounts with a balance of over $20.
• “Copying fee” of $3 per item, whatever that actually means (I suspect this applies if you ever dispute a charge or need a copy of a bill, or details on a transaction).
• “Wire transfer fee” of $5 per transaction, presumably used whenever you need to make a blazing-fast payment to avoid a late fee.
• Minimum finance charge is $0.50, but with a monthly servicing fee being assessed, you are guaranteed to always carry a balance, meaning you will always be paying interest no matter what you do.
• Cash advances cost $5 or 3% of the amount (whichever is greater). Cash advances and balance transfers have no grace period — they accrue interest starting the date they post to the account.
• Apart from cash advances and balance transfers, the grace period is 25 days for purchases.

Yes, this card has an annual fee and a monthly fee. It costs $179 just to open the account. It charges you $7 every time you make an internet payment (and it charges you $3.95 just to access your account at all online to make that online payment) or a payment by phone. If you set up automatic payments (where they execute a draft against your bank account automatically every month), they charge $11 per payment. The bank will automatically try to approve you for credit increases as often as possible after six months, with no guarantee that the limit increase will be significant, and will charge you $25 every time the limit goes up, even a little.

If you close the account, you are still charged $3 per month until the balance drops below $20. Naturally, you’re charged interest on the account’s balance whether the account is open or closed, and that interest is calculated after all other fees are assessed.

I genuinely believe it is impossible to keep a zero balance on this card for a one month period. I also think it’s impossible to avoid paying at least some interest every month — with fees appearing every month (and sometimes even more often — you can bet they’ll wait until your payment comes in and clears on a given month to mysteriously review your account and increase your credit limit — instant $25 fee), there’s always some kind of balance to charge interest on.

The fine print includes all the usual credit card gotchas. Late fees and over limit fees are both $29. You can be sure that if a late fee pushes you over limit, you’ll get slapped with an over limit fee, too. Hilariously, the company offers a “credit protection plan,” for the low, low rate of $0.89 per $100 account balance, that pays your minimum payment if you’re injured or laid off through no fault of your own. The full contract for the card isn’t available until after you’ve applied (and been approved) for the card; it’s mailed to you with the card. All the fees, interest rates, and terms can be changed at any time by the bank “in accordance with the Credit Card Contract.”

There’s also a clause forcing binding arbitration. Amusingly, they make sure to exempt themselves from that requirement if they ever need to use the courts to come after you for collection purposes.

Now, Some Questions

First, how the fuck is this even legal? The card’s opening fees amount to 72% of the minimum available credit line offered. The card costs $132 (in annual and monthly fees) to carry and use, even if you pay on time every time and pay the balance in full. It appears genuinely impossible to maintain a zero balance on the card or to avoid paying interest charges because fees happen so often. The card punishes “internet savvy” cardholders by making them pay a fee just to be able to access their account online, and by charging them $7 extra every time they make a payment online.

Second, who has ever signed up for this and decided it’s a good deal? This is quite literally “sign this sheet of paper and mail it back to us to be immediately billed for a minimum of $179.”

Finally, why do banks even bother complaining about consumers filing for bankruptcy and defaulting on loans when they pull stunts like this? The only word to describe this kind of “offer” is “predatory.” This is generally offered to people with shitty credit (heh, whoops, guess that means my credit sucks too ), but it clearly isn’t designed to actually give someone a shot to repair their credit with a low-limit high-interest card — it’s designed to squeeze as much cash as possible out of vulnerable people before they default. Really — what use is a credit card with only a $71 balance on it when it arrives? Buy a tank of gas, and suddenly more fees pop up and you’re over-limit, throwing even more fees on the plate and royally screwing you even harder.

It’s just disgusting. This bank deserves to fail. May this flailing economy swallow these bastards whole.

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