Friday
Apr242009
Credit Cards for 2 Year Olds
Justin Bathon on Friday, April 24, 2009 at 7:51AM There is a lot of national talk about the credit industry right now, including talk of more highly regulating credit cards. Well, yesterday my 2 year old got a credit card application in the mail. He can't even read (nor has he mastered going on the potty) yet Regions Bank was apparently willing to extend him a thousand dollar line of credit. What scares me about this nonsense is that someone may mess with it and mess up his credit score or something. Obviously, something is wrong with the credit industry when this kind of stuff is happening.
Reader Comments (2)
couldnt that in theory be a good thing for the 2 year old if the parent's opened it and maintained a small balance which they continually paid off for the next 16 years of his/her life thus establishing a positive and long-standing credit history? I wish I could have something like that, since as a 26 year old I battle an "ok" credit score due to "accounts that have a short history"
Interesting ... I guess that works in theory ... but I am not sure I want to put that risk on my 2 year old. It does speak to how insane our credit rating system (and credit industry generally ... obviously) is in this country, however.