Advanta Says Credit Card Default Rate More Than Doubled to 57% Last Month

[Purveyor]

By Peter Eichenbaum

July 20 (Bloomberg) -- Advanta Corp., the credit-card company that cut off almost 1 million accounts after posting three quarterly losses, said the default rate more than doubled in June from May to 56.95 percent.

The monthly data for the Advanta Business Card Master Trust Advanta Series was disclosed today by the Spring House, Pennsylvania-based company in a federal filing. An e-mail requesting comment from spokeswoman Amy Holderer wasn’t immediately returned.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=abXC1vzmy7Ws

[HopeHoops]

1. The bastards jacked my rate up two months before they closed everything.

I found out about it before they made it public. They didn't even bother to send an e-mail or post anything on the web site until AFTER it had occurred. Fortunately, since I found out about it, I was able to switch the auto-pay for my cell phone onto another card ahead of the shutdown.

So anyway, as someone who always pays early and more than the minimum, I had a 13% rate for a long time. In April, it suddenly became 40%. Their only excuse was that they reserved the right to adjust rates at any time without warning - check the fine print in the agreement. I was pissed. One of my other cards had a 1% for a year transfer deal so I moved the entire balance. Fuck them. I hope they burn in stinking pile of financial dog shit.

[MadHound]

2. This is the other shoe that's about to drop

Last quarter Bank of America, despite a decent overall quarterly earnings report stated last week that it had lost a billion dollars from it's credit card business. What the break down is between defaults and slowed business, I don't know. But now Advant is coming out with this statement, and I imagine that others will be piling on with losing credit card sectors shortly.

We've lived, either by choice or by necessity, on credit for far too long, and the bill has come due. As more and more people go under, they'll start taking banks along with them, and I imagine that sooner or later we'll be faced with the prospect of having to bail out banks and credit card companies before too long.