Credit Card Hell

—By Kevin Drum

| Tue Dec. 1, 2009 11:17 AM PST

Why are credit card companies so unwilling to transfer obviously distressed customers into programs that cancel their accounts and provide them a fixed period of time to pay off their balance?  Mike Konczal crunches the numbers and comes up with the answer: banks don't really care if you pay off your entire balance.  They can make more money by squeezing late fees and high interest rates out of you for even a short period than they can by having you pay off your whole balance at a moderate interest rate.  Details here.

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