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Microcap & Penny Stocks : DCI Telecommunications - DCTC Today -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: De Peepster who wrote (12574)	12/11/1998 7:17:00 AM
From: Dorine Essey	Respond to of 19331

Barbara, st go on keeping us laughing. Good post. ggg Found this in MSN Investor: Dorine W First USA Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Northeastern Ohio Bank Rate Monitor New credit card lets you make the call First USA finds a clever way to get its Platinum Connect card into your wallet: It doubles as a calling card. The freebie is nice, but be sure you really need it. By Lucy Lazarony, bankrate.com First USA has found a clever way to get a new credit card into a potential customer's wallet: Attach it to a free telephone calling card. The Platinum Connect card gives people 60 minutes of free long-distance calls. The Bank One-owned issuer has been sending the freebies to potential platinum credit card customers since spring. To get the free long-distance, recipients simply call a toll-free number and activate it. Great rates Call the same toll-free number to add the platinum credit-card feature to the card, which just happens to have a credit-card logo on its front. The credit card boasts a 3.9% annual rate during its five-month introductory period and a 9.9% fixed annual rate thereafter. "It's a clever idea -- a little diabolical, perhaps," says Lewis Mandell, author of "The Credit Card Industry: A History," and dean of the school of management at the State University of New York at Buffalo. "There is a proportion of people who won't throw away something that's free." With its value-added, customer-activated features, the Platinum Connect card also manages to get around federal restrictions against sending unsolicited credit cards. That practice was outlawed in 1970 after mass mailings of the cards resulted in widespread theft and fraud. "There were all kinds of horror stories of people having cards stolen out of their mailboxes," says Ray McAlister, a marketing and credit management professor at the University of North Texas. Calling card or credit card? But First USA insists that its Platinum Connect card is different. In fact, it's a calling card first and a credit card second. "It doesn't come to you as a credit card. It comes to you as a stored value calling card," says Dave Webster, a spokesman for First USA. "When you get the card in the mail, it's not an active card. It's not going to work until you activate it. And the person who receives it is the only one who can activate it. It's the most secure card we have ever issued." The pamphlet sent to potential cardholders describes the card as a "versatile reloadable stored value card that you can use to make calling-card calls. It also pays reward dollars based on your reloaded value. And, if you desire, you can add a Platinum Visa credit-card feature." When activating the 60 minutes of free long-distance, cardholders are asked for the account number of a debit or credit card. The account number will be billed if the customer chooses to add more long distance to the card. Loading value onto the card also means 10% in rewards and does not require activation of the credit card. Rewards program A cardholder who calls a toll-free number to add $50 of long-distance will be given $5 of cash value on a rewards account. The credit can be used by presenting the Platinum Connect card when making purchases where Visa or MasterCard is accepted. Credit experts say the Platinum Connect card is proof of how competitive the credit-card market has become and the lengths to which issuers will go to nab new customers. "They're getting more and more creative in getting their card in your pocket," says Nancy Deevers, director of education for Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Northeastern Ohio. "That's pretty aggressive. You already have the card. You don't have to apply for it. How much simpler can it be?" Despite all the nifty freebies, the credit questions for consumers remain the same: How does the card stack up with the other credit cards in their wallet? And do they really need another card? "If you apply for credit, make sure it's credit that you really want and need," says Donald M. Berman, president of Cardholder Management Services in Plainview, N.Y. "Don't be naïve and think that you need this credit card just because it has 60 minutes of free time."