Thursday, December 13, 2007

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:WaMu purchased the subprime credit card company Providian in 2005, Here you can read 2 articles I wrote about them back in 2001



WaMu makes horrible business desicion to purchase Providian in 2005

HousingFEAR wants to take you to a blast from the past!

My first writing experience online was writing for a website called Epinions.com where you would write reviews on companies and products.

In 2001, and 2002 I wrote two reviews about a loan shark credit card company named Providian. When I was first establishing my credit, I had to go through them to get a credit card, and they took advantage of me with a big annual fee, exorbitant 20%+ interest rate, and other shady practices.

After paying my bills on time, I received offers from real credit card lenders and dumped Providian. However, the experience left me disgusted with them and I wanted to warn others of their practices.

The point behind this all is that some genius at WaMu actually purchased this horrible company in 2005, so it is no surprise to me at all that the same genius was probably behind WaMu's heavy involvement in the sub prime mortgage lending debacle.

Needless to say, here is an article i wrote back in 2002 about Providian for your reading pleasure. And yes, I do find it somehow satisfying to see these snakes get burned.

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Article written about Providian Classic Visa in Oct 2001
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Article written about Providian Aria Visa in Jan 2002
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Very Nostalgic. :)

Again, the meltdown of WaMu really comes as no shock to me at all, I hope after reading my reviews it doesn't shock you either, that whoever was running this company in 2005 and thought it was a great idea to purchase sub prime monstrosity Providian would also be making bad home loans.

In fact, it makes perfect sense.




1 comment:

Anonymous said...

At least Providian was smart enough to lend out very small amounts of money in terms of credit limits, and made most of it back with fee's, interest, and charging for balance increases.

Sub prime Lending on the other hand really defies all logic or reasoning because if the person defaults the bank is stuck with a depreciating asset worth and a loss in the hundreds of thousands per deal.


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