I OPT OUT FROM EVERYTHING

OESTERHOUDT STRIKES

Two weeks ago, a student loan creditor (I have many) sent me a letter. It was basically a computer-generated message disclosing some vapid stuff about interest rates, new policies, a self-righteous-sounding commitment to green issues, contact information and other gibberish. But vacuous as it was, it still took up eight whole printed pages. I think it even mentioned the bank's "concern" about the "financial crisis;" yet it did not provide any debt relief. To help borrowers cope with these "difficult times," the bank suggested "paperless statements" and even went so far as to open a telephone payment center for "borrower convenience."

What generosity! Who knew the bank cared about me so much that it offered a new way for me to pay my existing debt! Wow, I feel so loved!

But this wasn't the most important thing in the bank's eight-page letter. The most important thing lay buried somewhere in the fine print on page six or seven, I can't remember which: A "Voluntary Opt-Out Provision." Essentially, it said that the bank "shares information about me" with "affiliated and non-affiliated entities" in order to provide "more effective financial services products" and to "offer better opportunities for consumers (like me) to enjoy financial services products."

In other words, the bank was telling me that it tells every other bank about me so those banks can bombard me with unfair loan offers, credit card applications and (naturally) look into my "personal credit score" to determine whether I am a "responsible commercial actor." Thanks to this "Voluntary Opt-Out Provision," however, the bank said I could FORBID them from sharing anything about me with any other bank, "affiliated" or not. I just had to check a couple boxes, sign my name, get a stamp and send in the page to some god-forsaken "processing center" in Nebraska.

I opted out, signed my name and mailed the form to Nebraska quicker than you can say: "Would you like capitalized interest with your loan, sir?"

When it comes to frustrating banks, I'm all over it. The "Voluntary Opt-Out Provision" gave me a chance to stop a bank from making even more profits from my debt. It gave me a chance to wield some power--however insignificant--to prevent the bank from exploiting my economic inferiority for even more gain. The bank already has a lien on my financial lifeblood. They get enough. It sickens me to know that they can make even more from me by selling off my name and address to other banks who just want to do the same thing to me. Generally, the bank holds all the cards over me. When I get a chance to tell the bank "No," I take it, even if it doesn't really change anything. I like knowing that I can strike back once in a while, even if only symbolically.

I know that banks are important. They lend money, which encourages private enterprise and risk-taking. That, in turn, increases the amount of goods and services in a free market economy, blah blah blah. But I don't care about all that. All I know is that I had to assume virtually unending debt to (drumroll, please) learn about contracts, torts, corporate law and civil procedure. I don't regret my legal education. I just think the bank winds up getting a lot more from the relationship than I got. After all, the bank sent a check or two to help me pay my tuition over three years. In return, the bank got a legal right to demand cash from me every month until the year 2036. By that time--if I'm still alive, which I doubt--I will have paid ten times as much as I received in 2003-2006.

Is this fair? Does it matter? The law certainly doesn't think so. The law calls such results "informed commercial bargaining in a free market system." I call it pure economic tyranny. But I'm a radical and I have no power. Plus I signed a paper and the law favors the bank. So the bank wins.

Banks get away with everything. Few things arouse my cynicism as much as banking practices. Even the concealed "Voluntary Opt-Out Provision" shows how much banks hoodwink people. After all, banks assume they can share information about you with their profit-hungry partners-in-finance. They assume you don't know you have a right to opt out. So they conceal an "opt-out" provision in some long, boring letter that most people will simply throw away without reading. That lets them just get on with "business as usual," namely, peddling off your identity to other banks for a fee. When you are in debt, banks have you by the throat. They control the information you receive and sell everything they know about you. If it weren't for Democrats in Congress, you'd never even have the illusory right to opt out from squalid "information-sharing" like this. If banks got their way, you'd never know about their "secondary market" for "borrower information." But banks get around your rights easily enough; they just bury them in fine print and claim "they sent you a letter about it." Getting around laws is easy; you just need to read them.

Debt is a pernicious relationship. Banks exploit the relationship to the fullest. I have friends who recoil in horror when they hear about all the insolent little things that banks do to "screw them," like charging "overdraft fees," "stocking fees," "late fees" and "extra interest charges." They wonder how such unfairness is possible. Without shrugging, I explain that banks get away with everything because they can. It is very simple, actually. Before a bank lends money, you must sign a contract it wrote. That contract essentially empowers the bank to do anything it wants to you after you take the money. The common law evolved to vindicate the rights of creditors--like banks--against debtors. Fairness has little to do with it. Once the bank establishes its debt relationship with you, it assumes a massively superior position. It can knock you about with legal impunity. It can charges any fees it wants. After all, you took its money. From the law's perspective, that entitles the creditor to take virtually any liberty with the debtor. Prostitutes can't complain about mistreatment after receiving a patron's money, either. Like a whore's patrons, banks pay; and they play.

I don't even know who my creditors are anymore. When I started law school, I had to borrow from several lenders. This was the only way for me to cobble together the amount I needed. I had four separate banks. Since then, a few of those banks sold off their accounts to other banks. A few others changed their names or merged with other banks. I sometimes got letters about these changes. But sometimes I didn't. I had nothing to say about it. The banks just sold off my debt like an old shoe, leaving me wondering to whom I actually now owed money. Sometimes a new bank would threaten me with collection action because I didn't send payment to the right place. I would call and stay on hold for 90 minutes in order to say I didn't know they were my creditors now. Then, a year later, that bank would sell my account to another bank and I'd have to repeat the procedure. If my credit goes to hell, it won't be because I didn't pay my monthly tribute to the bank. It will be because the bank shuffled my debt to someone else, and I didn't get the message.

Yet sometimes I face bright moments. "Voluntary Opt-Out Provisions" represent such a "bright moment" in my endless scuffles with creditors. In the usual case, I am a worthless maggot in the bank's eyes, a despicable "account." I am not "Balthazar Oesterhoudt," the man who writes a satirical blog every morning and tries to fend off bills. I am "file number 5670-AC," an "account receivable" worth $413.28 per month until 2036. In short, I am inferior. The bank can squash me if I fail to pay. It can obliterate my credit rating and garnish everything I own. It can even break out the moral invective and call me an "irresponsible delinquent," even though it has no real authority to morally judge me. In the usual case, the bank gets to toss me around, scold me, take my money and do whatever else it pleases.

Yet in "bright moments," I get to say "Fuck off" to the bank--and get away with it. When I opt out, I assert my own power against the bank, maggot that I am. I might be a mere "account receivable" to the bank, but when I opt out from its "information sharing programs," I deny the bank a profit from selling my name and address to some other bank. That is oddly satisfying. After all, the bank is already making a hefty profit on me every month. It is accustomed to taking my money and even making a few extra dollars by selling my information to credit card companies. It is accustomed to doing what it wants with me. But when I opt out, I get to say: "No. You can't do whatever you want with me. Now I get to assert my own power over you. I hereby stop you from using me for your own gain."

This probably makes no difference at all. But I do it anyway simply to show that I am Balthazar Oesterhoudt, not just an "account receivable." I like the idea that I can say I am not for sale, no matter what the bank thinks.

When it comes to unfair power relationships, I OPT OUT. Banks can devour my property, but they'll never break me.

Two years ago, I learned that there is more to life than property and bodily comfort. If you understand that, there is nothing a bank can do to hurt you.

CREDIT TURNED DOWN? FEELING BLUE?

DON’T WAIT -- GET YOUR FREE COUNTER-CREDIT REPORT® TODAY

Are you sick and tired of credit checks? Do you feel bad when retail stores turn you down for a plasma screen television because you had a bankruptcy in 2004? Do you want to buy a car, but dealers laugh at you because the credit bureau labels your creditworthiness “Very Poor?” Well it’s time to reclaim your financial health. It’s time to set the record straight. It’s time to start buying. And it’s time to feel better about yourself, too.

No matter what the bureaus tell you, credit scores do not define who you are. You cannot go to jail for having bad credit. You may not be able to buy a home or rent an apartment, but no government official can arrest you because you did not pay your light bill in August 1990. In fact, our government would prefer that you go into debt. Our economy depends on people spending more money than they have. Without credit, the entire system would collapse. Yet credit bureaus make it difficult on average Americans to enter into more debt. By branding every American with a “credit score,” monolithic credit bureaus dissuade lenders from giving you money. In America, we can barely afford anything, and the bills keep pouring in. Virtually everyone has missed a payment sometime in their lives. In your hectic life, how can you not miss a payment? Your address changes, the bank sells its accounts to a subsidiary, your dog ate the check, you got sick, the post office did not forward your mail, you died… the list goes on. Your creditors don’t care. When you miss a payment, they call the credit bureau. And your score sinks.

What do your creditors tell the credit bureau? Basically, they call you a no-good dead beat. They say you failed to pay your $45.31 monthly phone bill, and that makes you a lousy bum who doesn’t deserve to get a loan because you can’t be trusted. The credit bureau types your name and social security number into a master computer, which then processes your information through a mathematical algorithm. When the computer is done, a number appears next to your name. You have been branded. You have a score. You are a “Credit Risk,” and you will not be getting a loan. Every time you ask for credit, the lender calls up the bureau. The bureau goes to the computer, pulls up your name and whispers the lender your number. The lender then tells you: “Denied. Have a nice day.”

Credit bureaus tyrannize well-meaning Americans. They say they are just doing “private business,” but in fact they make it difficult for Americans to go into debt. Without debt, you cannot pay your bills. Without debt, businesses fail. When businesses fail, the public suffers. In that light, credit bureaus do much more than mere “private business.” They defame and denigrate countless Americans. They cut down the credit tree before it can grow. They block lending, which in turn blocks interest payments and bank profits. In America, we need more people in debt, not less. Only through debt can retailers, banks and businesses survive. Americans want it all. We say: Give the people what they want. As long as you can show an income stream, you can finance anything.

It is time to stop collusive private credit bureaus. For decades now, three massive private firms have assumed dictatorial power over Americans’ financial lives. For decades now, these three firms have forced countless Americans into self-doubt, despair and poverty. They say they are simply “performing a service for interested creditors.” We say they are waging war on Americans’ self-esteem. How do you feel when the credit bureau says your score is “Poor?” What if you are a very nice person who helps his relatives when they are sick? What if you believe in God and truly wish others well in life? What if you spend your days caring for children and invalids? What if you donate time and money to the Ronald McDonald® cancer research fund? Is your character “poor” because you missed a mortgage payment in Q3 2005? Are you a “despicable, untrustworthy” person because your cell phone bill got lost in the mail in October 2003? Are you a “credit risk” because you did not pay your monthly credit card balance in June 2007?

No! You are a good person, and you should not allow some private cartel to brand you a dishonorable brigand for one financial mishap. You have done good things in your life, too. And you deserve recognition for them.

This is the United States of America. We believe in hearty business competition. Why, then, do we allow three private bureaus to form a monopoly on credit reporting? How have we allowed these monster corporations to tyrannize our financial and personal lives? Today, credit bureaus brand us deadbeats with impunity. They drive us to mental illness and desperation, even if we are fundamentally good people. They reduce us to a cold, impersonal “score” that determines our fortunes. They prevent us from entering into the debt we need to keep this country strong. We must stop the lies. It is time to stop the badmouthing. It is time to stop the bullying and denials. And it is time to start borrowing freely again.

Today, we are proud to offer Americans a solution to credit score tyranny: THE COUNTER-CREDIT REPORT® (CCR®). Unlike a traditional credit report, the CCR tells a positive story, not a negative one. Credit reports focus on all your financial flaws; by contrast, CCRs tell creditors how many bills you have actually paid in your life. Isn’t it only fair that creditors hear how many times you have paid bills, too? Now, they only hear how many times you missed payments. With a CCR, you can balance the scales. You can tell creditors: “Yes, I missed by gas bill in May 1996. But in February 2008 I paid $1,000 in rent, a $456.21 credit card bill, a $431.21 monthly student loan installment, a $212.32 car note, a Sbarro® tab for $5.87, and I paid cash for coffee every single morning that whole month.” Does that not show that you pay bills more than you miss them? Why allow credit bureaus to draw the wrong conclusions about you? Shouldn’t you have the opportunity to show that you have paid thousands of bills, but missed only 5? With a CCR, you can fight back. You can paint a just picture. And with a CCR you can get the loan you need to pay your other bills.

You have a right to be upset with credit reporting practices. Today, three colossal credit bureaus compile scandalous data about you without your knowledge, then disseminate that data to others in order to stop you from buying what you want. Today, credit bureaus paint you a loser, a deadbeat, a vagabond. You deserve better. You are so much more than a “Below Average” credit score. You are an “Above Average” person. You have a family. You care for your children. You go to work. You pay for groceries and rent. Isn’t it only fair that your creditors know the good things about you, too? Let us bring fairness into the credit world. We do not have time for one-sided stories anymore. We deserve a well-rounded picture, not financial caricatures. This is about image. You should care about how creditors see you. With a CCR, you can restore luster to your image. It is time to let your creditors hear about how responsible you really are.

What are you waiting for? Call today for your FREE1 Counter-Credit Report. There is no obligation2. There is no monthly fee3. Aren’t you tired of letting credit bureaus sabotage your life plans by declaring you a deadbeat? Stand up for fairness. Stand up against monopolies. This is about financial integrity, and you know you pay more bills than you miss. Americans do not tolerate one-sided portrayals; they deserve a fair and balanced picture. Bring balance back to lending with a CCR in your hand. You owe it to yourself. You owe it to America. Because without debt, America fails™.

You have a right to tell people that you pay bills, too. In this country, we treasure responsibility. Is it not responsible to pay your bills? Every time you pay a bill, you fulfill a commitment. You satisfy an obligation. That is honorable. You are acting with trust and respect. You should get a good check next to your name for that. With a CCR, you can show the world how responsible you really are. Take a stand for responsibility. Call now.


1 Subject to terms and conditions. Offer variable at Seller’s option. Not valid in all areas. Call Seller for details. Initial payment of $44.99 allows Buyer opportunity for mail-in rebate. Allow 90 days for rebate. Shipping and handling costs to be unconditionally borne by Buyer; non-refundable.
2 Subscribing to Counter-Credit Report® services creates a legal obligation pursuant to Alaska law, unless and until Buyer fulfills applicable Cancellation Agreement terms and conditions.
3 Monthly fee of $9.99 assessed unless and until Buyer fulfills application Cancellation Agreement terms and conditions. See Retailer for Cancellation Agreement details. Failure to pay monthly fee will result in collection action, including reporting to all major credit bureaus. Attorney’s fees and costs to be borne unconditionally by Buyer. Any disputes shall be resolved by mediation. Seller has the right to choose the mediator. Buyer bears all costs associated with appearing before mediator in Anchorage, Alaska. Buyer hereby waives any and all right to a jury trial. Failure to appear shall result in default judgment for Seller.