Titch,+the+crunch+and+me,+Jon+Ronson,+Guardian+Comment+is+Free



=Titch, the crunch and me =


 * Jon Ronson, Guardian Comment is Free, 19 March 2008**

//My multiple personas had different traits - some were solvent, some were cash-strapped. Guess who the loan companies were interested in?//

Two years ago - before American [|subprime] borrowers began defaulting on their loans en masse, kickstarting the financial [|chaos] we're in now - I devised an experiment. I created a number of personas. Their surnames were all Ronson, and they all lived at my address, but they all had different first names and utterly different personalities, reflected in the various mailing lists they signed up to - from Porsche down to hardcore porn.

The one thing that united them is that they weren't interested in credit cards. They didn't seek loans or any financial services as they wandered around, filling out lifestyle surveys, entering competitions and buying things by mail order. Whenever they were invited to tick a box forbidding whichever company from passing their details to other companies, they neglected to tick the box. Which, if any, of my personas would end up getting sent pre-approved loan offers? Which personality type would be most attractive to the lenders? I named my personas John, Paul, George, Ringo, Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick, Titch, Willy, Biff, Happy and Bernard. And I began.

Happy Ronson was delightfully ethical. He cared about everything all the time. He subscribed to the magazines [|Going Green], Natural Parenting and Vegetarians International Voice For Animals. He shopped at Ecozone and donated to Peta. Happy filled in many lifestyle surveys, like the one published by the International Fund For Animal Welfare that asked which animals he especially cared about. Happy especially cared about dogs, cats, elephants, gorillas, tigers, whales, seals, dolphins and all animals in distress from oil spills. So he ticked everything. Then I got worried that if anyone was really paying attention to Happy's predilections, they might become wary of his wholesale compassion and suspect him of being an imaginary character, created by a journalist, to trick businesses into inadvertently revealing their data trafficking practices. So I unticked tigers.

I imagined Paul Ronson looked like the kind of guy you see in credit card adverts, the kind of guy you used to see in cigarette adverts - staggeringly handsome and healthy, an entrepreneur, a suave millionaire, the director of Paul Ronson Enterprises. Being a narcissistic aesthete who couldn't bear being around ordinary people, he subscribed to [|Porsche Design] ("Porsche: The Engineers of Purism"), Priority Pass ("Your key to over 450 airport VIP lounges") and so on.

Titch Ronson was the least favourite of my personas. He was venal. He thought about nothing but pornography, his virility, Nazi memorabilia and extreme martial arts. He subscribed to Fighters Only, a magazine dedicated to photographs of frequently blood-splattered boxers, with captions like "Psycho Steve Tetley. Lightweight. Hyper aggressive. He's called Psycho for a reason!" There was no end to Titch's troubles. He was also, I decide, a hopeless gambling addict, and signed up to William Hill and the Loopy Lotto free internet daily draw.

Midway through my experiment, I filled in a consumer lifestyle survey on Titch's behalf, attached to a Win A Day On A Playboy Shoot competition:

Is Titch in employment? No. He is an unemployed, single, 38-year-old homeowner.

His annual earnings are what? I ticked the "less than £10,000" box.

What are his annual outgoings? I thought for a moment, then ticked the "£10,000-£24,000" box. So every year Titch somehow managed to spend around £14,000 more than he earned.

How frequently does Titch pay off his credit card balance in full? Titch answered: rarely.

It took three months for the first unsolicited loan offer to arrive. Then, suddenly, I was bombarded. And which Ronson was inundated more than any other? Which Ronson received the first and, in fact, all the credit card junk mail? It was Paul: the handsome, high achieving, aesthetic, sagacious, millionaire Paul.

No, I'm joking. Paul didn't receive any credit card junk mail at all. It was Titch: stupid, superstitious, venal Titch.

Titch was offered [|loans] by Ocean Finance, Shakespeare Finance, e-loanshop.com, TML Mortgage Solutions, loans.co.uk, Blair Endersby, easyloans.co.uk, and an MBNA Platinum card.

Soon after I finished my experiment, the credit crisis began. Titch Ronsons across America were defaulting on loans they shouldn't have been offered in the first place - incredibly high interest loans, designed to exploit the weak and vulnerable.

I noticed that Titch stopped getting pre-approved loans through the post. "Good," I thought. "The lenders have learnt their lesson."

I mention all this now because, guess what? Titch has just had a letter. It's from American Express! There's a credit card in there! The application form is all filled out, with Titch's name and address, ready to go!

When will they learn?


 * From: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jon_ronson/2008/03/titch_the_crunch_and_me.html**

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