Minimum Payments Are Patriotic

Retirees Walter and Deana Soehnge saw that

the balance on their JCPenney Platinum MasterCard had gotten to an unhealthy level. So they sent in a large payment, a check for $6,522. And an alarm went off... After sending in the check, they checked online to see if their account had been duly credited. They learned that the check had arrived, but the amount available for credit on their account hadn't changed... They were told, as they moved up the managerial ladder at the call center, that the amount they had sent in was much larger than their normal monthly payment. And if the increase hits a certain percentage higher than that normal payment, Homeland Security has to be notified. And the money doesn't move until the threat alert is lifted.

Why is this not surprising? Is it because of the NSA domestic-spying imbroglio? Is it because the big credit-card firms rammed "bankruptcy reform" though Congress not long ago? Is it because we know Bush's "ownership society" rhetoric is more a way to position the owners to control society than to endow more people with ownership?

(Story seen on Boing-Boing.)