Are you as sick as I am at the "get out of debt" TV ads? Pay off your credit cards and become debt free. Is this for real? In my opinion, this type of advertising is as bad as ads for cigarettes that show people in good health enjoying a quick smoke. Smoking causes cancer and debt free ads cause more debt for the unwary. As the ad goes, you are asked to call a 800 number which will show you how to borrow money to pay off your credit cards and become debt free. Wait a minute, won't I then owe money to the people who loaned me money to pay off my credit cards? Of course you will, but you will be "credit card" debt free. You are still in debt just to a different company.
You will now owe even more money to another company and no doubt they will have a call on your assets and your paycheck to an extent that the credit card companies seldom touch. In all fairness to the debt-for-sale mongers, their argument is that your credit card interest is plus 20% and they charge you, say 15%, so arguably you pay less interest, but you still pay and pay and pay. The ad writers are very clever so you have to listen closely to the ads to detect the carefully chosen words that allow them to infer one thing, but say another. The ad writers are no dumbbells so they walk safely through a minefield of ineffective consumer protection advertising laws. However, it is still misleading advertising at one extreme and fraud at the other.
What is the point? I suggest if there any oversight authority on TV ads, they need to step in and do the right thing on these debt ads, or be prepared to launch another government bail out for the consumers who step into debt quicksand by naively responding to one of the TV ads for "Get Out of Debt Free." It is another example of no-doc home loans in a different colored cloak. Advertising is the heart of conspicuous consumption-the holy grail of economic recovery, but "get out of debt" ads are economically irrational.
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