So Far Feb Is My Worst Month EVER

[Aiden]

I heard a lot of banks are cutting people's available credit. Even if they have never missed a payment. Banks are shaking in their boots right now and unsure about people's ability to repay. Especially with thousands of layoffs announced every day.

Im sure a lot of those failed rebills are due to lowered credit limits. :egg:

[Mansized]

I heard a lot of banks are cutting people's available credit. Even if they have never missed a payment. Banks are shaking in their boots right now and unsure about people's ability to repay. Especially with thousands of layoffs announced every day.

Im sure a lot of those failed rebills are due to lowered credit limits. :egg:

Good point. I've had several of my cards reduced dramatically. Some down to $500 (especially American express)..and I've never been late for a payment or anything.

I think that shocks a lot of Americans who THINK they have a fall back plan (credit card) or think they can use it instead of cash and find out they can't.

[nickbaer]

Some people explain the actions of the credit card companies in cutting customer credit lines as a method of cutting their (the credit card companies') exposure to lending and to risk.

The other argument is that in so doing the credit card companies force the customer's credit score to go lower (a component of the FICO score is the relationship between a customer's available credit vs credit used), thus allowing the credit card companies to charge higher interest rates.

[hdkbill]

Just heard on the news tonight that American Express is actually offering $300 to certain card holders who agree to voluntarily cancel their accounts. That just shows how bad the economy is and perhaps how bad American Express is hurting..

Anticipating a really bad month, we decided to run a sale for the month on overstocked merchandise. The result has been a huge increase in not only sales of DVD's but also memberships. I think that shows that consumers still have money to spend on their adult pleasures but that they are just tighter with that money. The reason for the increase in memberships is that members get an additional 20% off, even on sales merchandise.

The really interesting aspect of this sale is that we've seen a huge increase of consumers using their American Express cards as opposed to VISA or Mastercard. Usually American Express usage is a very low percentage of the total credit card sales. Not this month. Not sure what that is telling me but I'm assuming that part of it is that the customers have maxed out their VISA's and Mastercard's but since AE has to paid each month, they are using it to take advantage of the sale.

Bill

[MiamiB]

American Express just offered me a new account with a $12,000 credit line. It was an AM/EX via CitiBank but still an American Express.

Just to show you that not everyone is experiencing the same thing with banks.

[derekt]

Anticipating a really bad month, we decided to run a sale for the month on overstocked merchandise. The result has been a huge increase in not only sales of DVD's but also memberships. I think that shows that consumers still have money to spend on their adult pleasures but that they are just tighter with that money. The reason for the increase in memberships is that members get an additional 20% off, even on sales merchandise.

We just did an email blast Thursday of last week offering our past customers a 20% discount on their total order until the 25th. They are ordering. Not as much as to when the economy was up, but it's doing well.

We are preparing to completely relaunch our new DVD store March 10th - it should be completed at that time. Once the new store relaunches we will be running an overstock sale as you stated... Especially on HDK DVDs that we have 3-5 cases of!!! STILL STACKED IN THE BASEMENT! :goatse: