The Fresno Drop
1958 · Unsolicited Mass Mailing of Bank Credit Cards · Work 742 of 1,871
A row of kerbside mailboxes of 1958 along a residential street of low flat-roofed bungalows in Fresno in California at midday in September, seven plain unmarked sheet-metal mailboxes with rounded tops, dull silver grey, each on its own wooden post at the kerb, in the open mouth of every box plain pale envelopes, smooth blank back side out, the nearest box with its front flap hanging open and one envelope drawn halfway out, behind the posts dry yellowed lawn and clipped hedges, at the roadside the tail of a two-tone saloon car with tail fins, a mail carrier seen from behind in a short-sleeved grey-blue shirt with a brown leather satchel, hard overhead sunlight and short shadows.
- What it was used for
- In 1958 Bank of America mailed credit cards, unrequested, to its own account holders in Fresno. The Javelin figure quoted by Consult Hyperion gives 18 September 1958 and 60,000 cards; the programme 99% Invisible also gives 60,000 mailings, about 300 merchants signed up in the city, and roughly a 500-dollar line of credit per card. According to 99% Invisible, the mailing was meant as a controlled experiment in which the bank could test the concept. Collection was another matter. KVPR gives delinquency of up to 22 percent, "well above expectations"; JSTOR Daily, following Timothy Wolters, says delinquent accounts ran five times as high as expected, and 99% Invisible says one in four did not pay.
- What was new
- What was new was not the credit card — Diners' Club, per JSTOR Daily, launched a card for hotels, retail stores and restaurants in 1949, and charge plates were older. What was new was the channel: a bank pushed unrequested cards into nearly every household of one city at once. PBS Frontline calls it "the nation's first general-purpose credit card". The barb is in the success: unsolicited mass mailing became an industry tool until Congress banned it. The FDIC examination manual records: "The TILA was first amended in 1970 to prohibit unsolicited credit cards."
What the sources leave open: PBS Frontline calls the BankAmericard “the nation's first general-purpose credit card”, KVPR “the first bank-issued credit card”; both are the programmes' judgements, not undisputed findings. According to JSTOR Daily, the Diners' Club card was already accepted in hotels, shops and restaurants in 1949.