Read the explanation that the unnamed credit card company gives for a laugh here:

is having a blackout during New Years. Special announcement!! Millenium blackout For the first time in the history of , the {credit} card will not be honored anywhere on 12/31/1999 and 1/1/2000. This is due to the fact that during the millenium celebration everybody is charging 3-5 times the normal rates and has therefore decided that we are not going to participate.

This crap is ludicrous, and gets worse daily!! I can't believe that even Pollies would believe this one, but then again, they probably will. What evidence does this company have of price gauging? Insanity!!

-- regular (zzz@z.z), July 02, 1999

Answers

The formatting of the announcement screwed up the statement. I'll try again to reproduce it:

[company name] is having a blackout during New Years. Special announcement!! [company name] Millenium [sic] blackout For the first time in the history of [company name], the {credit} card will not be honored anywhere on 12/31/1999 and 1/1/2000...

-- regular (zzz@z.z), July 02, 1999.

Credit card companies are concerned about their customers financial well being, and would gladly turn down the extra profit they may make due to the possible "gouging"..................NOT.....ROTFLMMFAO!!

-- CygnusXI (luppotreb@aol.com), July 02, 1999.

Oops. That's price "gouging", not "gauging". Thanks for the correction.

Seriously, has anyone heard anything remotely like "everybody is charging 3-5 times the normal rates" from any source anywhere? This statement is so absurd I can't help but laugh. Aren't they fostering panic by making such a baseless statement?

-- regular (zzz@z.z), July 02, 1999.

Yup! Huge "credit company" looking after their poor, helpless customers, as any good parent would... Lesse, they probably charge their "children" 18% on that credit, right? Rather than a more "loving", parental 5%.

What's wrong with this picture?

-- Dennis (djolson@pressenter.com), July 02, 1999.

Well....I don't know. Ol' Ko-skin-em says prepare for a hurricane and we in Florida know that you always get gouged price wise after a hurricane goes through. They are just listening to the gov'r advise and extrapolating it out. sounds right to me!! LOL

Taz.. who is sending her cards in and requesting a letter that account is closed with nothing owing!

-- Taz (Tassie @aol.com), July 02, 1999.

They are stating that "during the millenium [sic] celebration everybody is charging 3-5 times the normal rates". I can see gouging during a crisis like a hurricane, but gouging during a "celebration"?

Did anyone else receive this? Can we "out" the company? Seems to me they need to come clean.

-- regular (zzz@z.z), July 02, 1999.

It's hard to believe any company could come up with such a stupid excuse for not doing business on those two days...........it's so idiotic I'm wondering how they feel the public would possibly buy into their story...............

I think it would be nice to know all the facts though, such as what company this actually is. There's nothing wrong with posting the name of the company as long as their letter is accurately posted.

-- Craig (craig@ccinet.ab.ca), July 02, 1999.

My husband's boss noticed that his credit card expired on 12/31/99. He phoned the bank and asked for a new card now, in case there was a problem getting one at the end of the year or beginning of the next. The banks reply was that they have not issued ANY credit cards that expire in 2000 or beyond and will be replacing ALL the cards in January, after the 01/01/00 date change, to keep problems from occurring.

-- Shannon (Teacherof3@aol.com), July 02, 1999.

regular,

I don't know about the "not going to participate" part, nor whether "3-5 times normal rates" will be typical, but I think it's a safe bet that many places will have rates much higher then usual, and some will have rates that will be several multiples of usual.

Jerry

-- Jerry B (skeptic76@erols.com), July 02, 1999.

Now wait a minute.

If Lefkowitz received this with his credit card bill, WHY CAN'T HE INCLUDE THE COMPANY'S NAME? It's a public document (presumably they sent the notice to all of their cardholders).

-- Dean -- from (almost) Duh Moines (dtmiller@nevia.net), July 03, 1999.

Good point, Dean (from almost Duh Moines)

I only have one credit card, and it's Discover. My expiration date is the year 2002. I really don't have a handle on the other ones out there. Who are these LITTLE companies? Is the guy talking about a particular store? VISA, Mastercard, Discover, and that one that charges a fee just to have it are the only ones I really know about.

The price-gouging theory is interesting to me. I've stored all the information on what I have in my cache on an Access database (including price and date.) I began this practice last year when I felt the need to store some goods. I've taken a copy of this database to the store each time I've shopped, and have actually seen prices DECREASE since I purchased them last year. OUCH! Now this doesn't mean that the same will hold true come December, but it's been my experience of late. I anticipated price-gouging last year and that's the reason why I included date and price paid in the database.

-- Anita (spoonera@msn.com), July 03, 1999.

I'm suspicious of the authenticity of the supposed message from a credit card company. The wording is amateurish and unclear, and the purported rationale is dubious.

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), July 03, 1999.

It sounds a bit like an airline offering as its reason for not flying that weekend, the fact that they wanted to give all of their employees a much needed break.

-- Dancr (minddancr@aol.com), July 03, 1999.

Dancr, Exactly! Thats what I thought. If I were a credit card co and I knew in advance that I was not going to make it.... If I was smart I would say NOTHING AT ALL, but they are not smart.....they are taking a 'europian holiday'. We will not be doing business on 12-31-99 thru 1-1-00 due to..... we cant.

-- bulldog (sniffin@around.com), July 03, 1999.

Anita,

The large price increases that I expect will be at places hosting New Year celebrations: hotels, restaurants, resorts, etc. The timing of the large price increases will be during those celebrations.

Jerry

-- Jerry B (skeptic76@erols.com), July 03, 1999.

I haven't seen anything with my MasterCard or Visa so far. If they are referring to "millennium" vacations - hotels, cruises, etc., - I believe most have been sold out many, many months ago - at exorbitant prices. I may be wrong but I would assume that you'd have had to prepay for these also - I expect all of those taking vacations at that time are DGIs. Any travel agents out there?

-- Arlene (araynor@concentric.net), July 03, 1999.