I just paid my Providian Visa bill and checked my current activety. I was given a credit for $9.31. It was called "Class Action Lawsuit B".
Anyone know what this is all about and more importantly-anyone know how I can get them to do this every month. ;)

This is the latest class action lawsuit that was settled against Providian. I was given $5.12 or something like that. If you keep things, they sent out a pamphlet a couple of months ago that described the different levels (A, B, etc.). I forget what the suit was about, but who cares. Free money. By the way, the credits in our accounts most certainly explain the 29.99% APR they're pushing come August. It's funny: they get sued for bad faith practices, so they credit people, and then implement more bad faith practices to pay for the credits. Keep your eyes open for another credit in the following months... LOL As soon as I get my Citibank Upromise card in the mail, I'm calling Providian to cancel. I currently have a 0 balance, and I've never been late. I'm kinda interested to see what they'll say - whether they'll try to keep me or not.

Good luck cancelling your Providian Card. I cancelled mine and they prompty sent me a new card, it took a second call to actually get the thing closed down properly.

As luck would have it exactly the same thing happened with my Home Depot card.

As an aside, i should say that Providian enabled me to get on the 'credit bandwagon' when we landed in this fair country in mid 1999.

No other credit company would touch us with a barge-pole since we had either a 'non-existant' credit history or "too many accounts opened recently" problem. That said i think we'd all agree that they do extract more than their pound-of-flesh in the APR dept.

A sidenote : It's my firm belief (and i think other people have echoed this) that you should always hold 1 or 2 cards just get a credit rating. You cannot begin to imagine the sort of problems you face in day-to-day life when you...

1. Don't have any CCs
2. Don't have a US drivers license
3. Try and use a check-book given #2
4. Try and pay cash for something like a TV and/or HiFi.

Conversations generally went something like...

[Me] - I'll take it, how much is it?
[Assistant] - $399.99 + tax, do you want a warranty
[M] - OK
[A] - How are you paying, CC?
[M] - Nope - dont have one.
[A] - Oh (stlightly bemused), we take checks
[M] - OK
[A] - Can i see your drivers license
[M] - Yep <hands over a UK drivers license>
[A] - OH... Where's the picture...
[M] - A British license doesn't have one (which was true in 1999)
[A] - Oh, I see <then proceeds to try and enter the handy 20 character license number into his register - which of course doesn't fit>
[A] - Nope - this isn't going to work.
[M] - OK, i'll go to the bank and get Cash - Is that OK??
[A] - Let me talk to my mangager...

This whole process became familly entertainment to see the assistant become more and more confused by his/her apparent inability to actually part with good that somebody wanted (and had the means) to buy. Given the incompatible nature of the US and UK electrical (and TV) system i think we bought pratically every 'essential electrical consumer product' in the space of one month.

Vlad
Apologies for digressing...

There was a class action lawsuit done against Providian, led by Terrence Hallinan (District Attorney for San Francisco) and some others in California and Fed governments.

They were found guilty of quite a lot of finagling, schemes, false advertising, underhanded stuff, and more. There was some formula for how much money everybody got based on how badly they'd been abused by Providian.

About 2 yrs ago I got a $1500 check from this lawsuit - apparently I got reamed badly by Providian. ;-) About a year later I got another pittance from it.

There'd been a similar lawsuit against First Usa (I think), that I got a mailing on, but haven't heard anything from it in over a year.

- David

Hey! I recently closed my account with Providian....does this mean I'm due for $9.31???!!!!!

-k