Advanta bank's CEO is Dennis Alter. Advanta is headquartered in Bluebell Pa. Advanta's main business is credit cards to small businesses, usually with a very low ‘teaser' interest rate (7.99% in most cases).
Whether or not your credit or payment history stellar or is as agreed, Advanta just raised rates for thousands of customers 3 fold or more-25% is normal, some are now paying 35%!!! Many customers state they have never been late with a payment and have credit scores above 700, considered good to excellent credit.
In addition, Mr. Alter has contributed thousands of dollars to BOTH Barack Obama and John McCain's campaigns. Mr. Alter also was paid almost $1 Million in compensation plus given large amounts of stock in Advanta this past year, while Advanta's stock has slipped from almost $27/share to around $6-7 presently. These bait-and-switch rate increases, with little or no warning, is impacting thousands of Advanta clients who are small business owners-google "Advanta complaints" and read about it, many state they did NOT receive any written notification of increases (I did not).
This should be exposed, for the greed and the unethical practices, and is tantamount to usury or loan shark tactics-I also think the stock holders of Advanta should be aware that there is going to be a serious backlash for these actions.
The Obama and McCain camps can say all they want about 'CHANGE' but both took large contributions from Alter. I'll also add a woman at the FDIC, which regulates Advanta told me they were aware of these complaints, and they were investigating this situation. She said that there was a problem since the company was not utilizing any criteria for arbitrarily raising rates..
Contact Mr. Alter (215-657-4000) to voice your displeasure. Write to your local newspaper or TV station, send this to national media, like CNN, MSNBC, national news magizines-with the economy in shambles, and banks raping customers, and politicans spouting change, this needs to be exposed for what it is-out-and-out greed.
Daleuknow
philadelphia, Pennsylvania