In
my early 20's, fired by the experiences of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky
and my mother, I embraced financial austerity, taking a path that
would produce unforeseen difficulties years later when I would try
to get a credit card.
At that impressionable age, I read about Dostoevsky's financial travails:
the steep interest rates, the tight deadlines, the fear of debtors prison,
harassment by creditors, and the friendship ruined when a loan from Turgenev
went unrepaid. Closer to home, I couldn't help but notice that our family
was becoming burdened by the interest on our charge account at J.C. Penney,
where Mom seemingly bought as much yardage as she sold to customers.
I wanted to be a serious literary writer and-encouraged by Jack Kerouac-travel
the world, too. Freedom, I decided, couldn't be purchased with credit cards.
Heaven forbid I'd have to take up genre writing to pay off American Express.
Decades later, though, when six continents on my world map were sprinkled
with pins and my closet was heaped with unpublishable manuscripts, I had
a change of heart, but by then, credit would not be given where credit
was due.
Why couldn't I get a credit card when I finally wanted one? Did I vacation
in Cannes for a sun-drenched month when I could afford only a weekend in
a log cabin in Crestline? Was my closet awash with Armani suits and silk
ties? Hardly. My bank wouldn't give me-its own loyal customer-a credit
card because I had never owed a cent. No debt, no credit history, no credit
card.
But hadn't I ever made a payment for a car or a student loan? Nope.
As a baby boomer growing up in Southern California, I embraced the dictum
that it's best not to be a borrower or a lender. If I wanted to buy some
Milk Duds or a Hardy Boys book, I emptied the greasy coins from my Hopalong
Cassidy piggy bank and bought what I could afford ... without asking Dad
for an advance on my 25-cent allowance.
When it came time to apply to college, I never for a flickering second
thought of yoking a student loan to my future. Instead, I picked a Cal
State within an hour of the family home and toiled for the Southern Pacific
Railroad during summers to pay fees and bus fares. In school, Dostoevsky's
example reconfirmed everything I had already learned about debt. So, when
unsolicited credit cards-bearing my embossed name-arrived at the family
home, I immediately cut them into shards with Mom's pinking shears.
After college, I traveled the world on a Spartan budget, worked at various
jobs, and wrote unpublishable novels. To keep my freedom, I lived simply,
rented apartments, saved frugally, and avoided debt. When I bought a used
Volkswagen, it was with cash. Seventeen years later, I bought my second
car-a Mazda RX-7-with a money order. I've skirted financial ruin a few
times, and once, after two years of vagabondage and unremunerative fiction
writing, I was destined to sleep in my dented Super Beetle until I won
$2,000 on "Scrabble," the television show.
I hate debt ... and what it has done to friends sagging under enormous
monthly payments. Virtually every bill that lands in my mail slot is answered
with a payment within 24 hours. Just ask the Edison Company (which persists
in calling me "Morman" Day).
Several years ago, though, I decided my life would be a bit easier if I
had a credit card, so I could use the phone to order tickets for cultural
events ... like the Oingo Boingo concert at Irvine Meadows. I filled out
an application at my branch of Security Pacific Bank, which had recently
absorbed Gibraltar Savings, where I had kept my money for a decade, until
it sank into red ink.
Much to my astonishment, Security Pacific nixed my application, even though
I possessed about $10,000 in savings, a solid public relations job, and
a shiny sports car. The reason for refusal: insufficient or no credit history.
The letter was signed by J.K. North, lending officer. I called J.K.'s number
and was given no sympathy by his/her surrogate, so I shrugged and decided
to forget about it. Friends who knew of my thrifty nature consoled me by
saying that credit cards are granted to those who will abuse credit, not
use it.
It wasn't easy enduring haughty teenagers who-their wallets thick with
their own plastic-refused to give me a rental card at Blockbuster Video
until I lined up a cosigner. When I was forced to tell businesspeople that
I had neither Visa nor American Express, their eyes often narrowed in a
way that suggested they thought I was a shady character with a past concealed
by the federal witness-protec1tion program.
Through all sorts of indignities, I stiffened my upper lip. Every April,
though, my brow furrows when I file my Internal Revenue Service forms because-with
no mortgage interest to deduct-I am forced to pay higher taxes than homeowners
with equal salaries. In fact, I have to pay taxes on my bank interest,
and in years of soaring inflation, I've lost money by saving money. Then,
to add to my angst, my taxes have been used to bail out imprudent financial
institutions.
A few years ago, I figured I better get some credit, so that someday I
could buy a one-room condo in the hills of Mission Viejo, maybe even with
a view of the artificial lake ... and I could claim the mortgage interest
on my tax forms. I was ready to try again for a card when a Robinsons-May
clerk slipped me a credit application along with the box containing my
new pair of $65 shoes.
Within a week, I was turned down in a letter signed by Terry Smith. I dialed
Terry's number and was told that Terry is a "corporate name," a nom de
plume for the faceless bureaucracy. In other words, a fictional person-someone
like Becky Thatcher or Ivanhoe-was refusing to give me a card with a $500
line of credit.
Now I was getting upset. By then, Security Pacific-which had collapsed
under the weight of bad loans-had been absorbed by Bank of America. I went
to the modular building housing the local branch and handed in my paperwork
for a BankAmericard.
My letter of rejection was signed yet again by J.K. North, who-I figured-must
have some polished survival skills. I decided to ask J.K. exactly how much
money I needed to have in my account to get a credit card. But a phone
rep coolly informed me that J.K. North was a "correspondence name." She
told me to put my questions in writing. End of conversation.
I restudied my 4-year-old rejection from Security Pacific and noted that
J.K.'s "signature" was stamped on the letter. No doubt in the name of cost
containment, Bank of America had chosen not to wear out its inkpad and
had left a blank space above the printed name.
Within minutes, I dispatched a letter to Bank of America, questioning its
decision to "bank on America" but not on me. Back came a list of determining
factors: length of present employment (nine months earlier I had landed
a better-paying job after three years at another hospital), age of credit
file, and credit-bureau inquiries.
One day, while I was pondering my next move, I received another letter
from Bank of America. My statement. In my checking account, I had $2,577.
And in my Cash Maximizer account, I had $51,885.
Eventually, Bank of America took pity on the likes of me and introduced
secured credit cards. I put $1,000 in a special account and was sent a
credit card with a $1,000 limit. Since then, I have duly paid off my debt
each month, lest I reward the system with a single kopek in interest. Finally,
I received a congratulatory letter from R. Coleman, unit manager, informing
me that Bank of America was going to "graduate" me-at age 50-to a standard
card.
I decided to phone R. Coleman to thank him/her for the vote of confidence,
but it was a Saturday afternoon and a recorded message suggested I call
back on a weekday. I'm determined to track down R. Coleman because I want
him/her to visit me here in bankrupt Orange County. We can have a nice
discussion about America's national debt while we sip gourmet coffee and
nibble on blueberry scones. The deepest pleasure, of course, will come
at the end of our conversation ... when I pay the bill with my credit card
and then pocket the receipt for tax purposes.
Now, of course, I want vengeance. For one, I won't be using my card at
the department store that rejected my credit application. Rather than buy
another pair of imitation leather shoes at Robinsons-May, I'll carve sandals
out of a discarded tire and lace them up with twine.
Of course, I can always follow the example of a long line of authors who
have found that writing is the best revenge.
*Orman Day is a public-relations consultant and writer in Orange County,
California. He has backpacked through 90 countries and is now writing his
travel memoirs. |
