The credit card industry may wellappreciate the black humor of a new online contest offering a cashprize for the most entertaining video of how to shred your creditcard (and presumably reduce your debt). Some of the contest(sponsored by Perkstreet Financial and Lending Club) videos areindeed entertaining. But, after watching a few, I think plasticsmanufacturers should take heart that their products are in factpretty hard to destroy, and that the process of destroying themmight actually do some collateral damage (i.e. I’m not sure howwell that blender is going to work after the guy put in his creditcard).
Somehow, all this fun masks the fact that shredding your creditcard account is actually much tougher. The plastic might be gone,but those pesky outstandings are still there to deal with. But eventhose are not immutable: the latest FRB G19 reading from Novemberindicates credit card outstandings are still dropping, and ofcourse charge-offs are still high (but now moving in the rightdirection).
Somehow, all this fun masks the fact that shredding your creditcard account is actually much tougher. The plastic might be gone,but those pesky outstandings are still there to deal with. But eventhose are not immutable: the latest FRB G19 reading from Novemberindicates credit card outstandings are still dropping, and ofcourse charge-offs are still high (but now moving in the rightdirection).
The silver lining here is the contrarian part. The investmentworld, which is prone to asset bubbles as we all know, suggeststhat by the time a trend hits the popular media-like the mania tobuy gold, oil, real estate, etc.-the peak and inevitabledecline/crash in the trend is nigh. Might some of those folksmutilating their cards in the videos be secretly accepting some ofthose new promotional credit offers in the mail? Maybe not yet, butdon’t look for that in a video.
See Shredyourcreditcard.com Video Site: http://shredyourcreditcard.com/
