October 19, 2009
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Finding 0% APR CCs, Pt.2
Purple Haze.This is the continuation of the subject Advertising: pertaining to introductory '0%' (or low-rate) credit card accounts. Following is a more detailed description of the various inferences requiring credit card-consumer scrutiny: It's important to sort them out when opening a new credit card account with low interest and high expectations.
<o> Perceived Advantages (smokery): These inferences are generally honest but lack proper context. Some examples are:
<^> Online Services: Sure "On-line Credit Card Manager"s are great. But you're led to believe that, because they offer them, this deal is better then the competition's. Truth-in-fact here is that nearly all of the competition offer these also.
<^> Alerts: Same with "Alerts". They're great but, not unique nor exclusive. Everybody offers them also. However, this wasn't the case a few years ago. So this false context is to catch the weary credit card consumer who still doesn't know that times have changed. Incidentally, alerts are great, everyone should use them.)
<^> Updated News Letters: These are more of a nuisance than anything else but they make the superfluous list of credit card benefits look longer.<o> Exaggerated Perceptions (puffery): When you see slogans and flashes that insinuate this credit card offer to be the best in the world. Notice that they're never scoped nor substantiated. Puffery is almost ubiquitous with advertising. It's considered by those in the know as being harmless bragging.
"In-the-know" is the key word, here. It was so frustrated when I saw the advertisement for Taco Bell. The picture showed about a pound of meat somehow stuffed in a shell. After rushing straight to the nearest location and ordering two, I was totally flabbergasted to find hardly any meat in either one. I looked around and noticed no one else was upset or even surprised. Since that time, I've noticed that practically everyone else does it (though maybe not that extreme). When you see things like "Lowest credit card interest", "easy credit" and things like that, just ignore them..