“Chase What Matters” Advertising Campaign

Feb
16th
2008

Filed Under Credit Cards
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Quicken, like most financial software packages, does a good job of tracking credit card spending. It records individual transactions, compares your available credit to your credit limit, and will even tell you how long it will take you to pay off the balance. Nothing fancy here.

But, there’s a new competitor on the market. I saw a commercial recently for Chase Bank that advertised the ability to quickly (they claim in “real-time”) check your credit card balance via a cell phone text message. This service will enable you “to decide what to spend” on the spot. The poor chump in the commercial is seen in the electronics store kicked back in a recliner trying to figure out which big screen television to purchase. He has to text the bank to decide if he can get a 15″ or a 53″ TV.

I’d bet a dollar on the following statements about the individuals this service is targeted at:

  1. They are probably not using Quicken (or any other management software) to track their spending.
  2. They are probably only making minimum monthly payments on that credit card.
  3. That “TV” or other large purchase will cost them quite a bit more in the long run than what the price tag says.

It would seem to me that there is something innately wrong with this type of service. It is encouraging people to base their spending on how much available credit they on their credit card.

A smart Quicken user would know how much they can afford before they leave the house. He/she would also NOT use a credit card because a savings plan had been started and followed long before the item was necessary.

DK



Comments

2 Responses to ““Chase What Matters” Advertising Campaign”

  1. Chase Credit Card Phone Number on March 15th, 2008 6:41 am

    I found your blog via Google while searching for chase credit card phone number and your post regarding Advertising Campaign : Quicken Engineering looks very interesting to me. Just wanted to drop you a quick note to say thank you for a great resource.There is nothing else like your site on the net today. My friends are just going to love this site once I let them know about it.

  2. Mr P on March 19th, 2008 12:52 pm

    Good article - and warning to Quicken (or MS Money) users:
    Don’t bank with Chase!

    I use Quicken software to download and manage all of my banking and credit card transactions.

    Unfortunately, Chase only allows transactions from the last 45 days to be downloaded. All of my other bank providers (Bank of America, Citi, etc) allow me to go back for over a year.

    I just spoke to Chase’ customer service department by phone, and apparently this is a frequent complaint. I was planning to download all of my 2007 business expenses into Quicken and TurboTax so that I quickly prepare my tax return.

    Instead, their customer service department advised me to download my statements as PDFs and copy and paste the data into Quicken. Hello!?!? It’s 2008! Time to catch up with the rest of the world, Chase!

    Don’t use Chase if you are a user of accounting or financial management software

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