Chapter 3 - HISTORY OF THE CREDIT CARD
The year was 1949.
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Frank McNamara was a well-known, savvy executive of the Hamilton Credit Corporation. His office was in the Empire State Building in New York City. One evening he and a business colleague went out for dinner to Majors Cabin Grill Restaurant in Manhattan.
When the time came to pay the bill, McNamara found himself in a predicament. “Oops, I don’t have my wallet.” Lucky for him, his wife bailed him out. She covered the tab, obviously with cash.
McNamara thought about a means of preventing an embarrassment like the one he had experienced. He did not want that to happen to him again.
He started thinking that people would also not want that to happen to them.
1950 - Diners First Supper
In 1950 McNamara went back to the Grill restaurant —which no longer exists— and paid the bill with a thin cardboard card while confidently boasting out loud, “Charge it!”
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By the way, in the credit card industry, that event is known as “The First Supper.”
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Little did anybody know that such a supper had been cooked with obscure financial deceit as part of the ingredients, a secret sauce of business craftiness mixed in with the food, and smilingly, brought out to the table while being served in
the spirit of usury.
That meal would start to settle in. Unknowingly, many victims would later begin to have upset financial stomachs. These were thousands of consumers who, perhaps at first thought, “what
a good deal,” as it appeared to be sprinkled with convenience. Later, though, they would start to discover that the experience would culminate in financial bitterness.
They ended up paying more for the meal than what it initially cost!
Visa – It's everywhere you want to be
Did you ever hear their old slogan that was around for two decades? “It’s everywhere you want to be?” Can you see the psychology behind it? As if daily life would not be complete without it. Yeah, right.
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Then, in 2006 they introduced a new slogan. Visa redefined it with more psychological precision. Simplification sought to embed it deeply into the subconscious mind, “Life takes Visa.” Really?
Are you going to buy into that? As if life without a Visa is not a life? Choose to live a happy life.
Choose to be free from Visa.
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Visa is by far the largest of the four major U.S. credit card networks. For the 12 month-cycle ending December 30 of 2020, Visa’s U.S. credit payments volume was 1.97 trillion dollars.
There were 343 million Visa credit cards in circulation in the U.S. and 798 million Visa credit cards in circulation outside of the U.S. by the end
of September 2020 (Visa operational performance date, fourth quarter, 2020)
