Worrisome Trend Watched Closely by Federal Reserve, Homeland Security
Credit counseling services and bankruptcy monitoring agencies are growing concerned about postcard collectors maxing out credit cards and draining bank accounts through reckless purchases during e-Bay auctions.
“Postcard collectors as a group often skate close to the edge of thin financial ice as they pursue their manic quests, but I have never seen it this bad, just so plain worrisome as now,” said Elmer Goggins, executive director of the National Association of Spendthrift Consumption. “Some of the postcard auctions we have monitored on e-Bay recently just take your breath away.”
An e-Bay spokesman, while declining to reveal the total dollar volume of recent postcard sales at the Internet auction site, said a couple of postcards had recently sold in the “low seven figures” range.
“There was a real cliff-hanger of an auction for a card that had a picture of Genghis Kahn on a horse and a Mongolian stamp that the seller claimed dated back to 1215,” the eBay spokesman said. “I didn’t know they had postcards in Mongolia then, but I assume the buyers who bid on the card knew what they were doing.”
Bankruptcy Monitor, the weekly newspaper published in Cleveland, reported in last week’s edition that 22 percent of personal bankruptcies east of the Mississippi River in the last two weeks were connected to the activity of postcard collectors at the eBay auction site.
The paper quoted an unnamed Federal Reserve official as saying, “There’s clearly some wild, irresponsible speculation going on and some of these collectors simply lose their heads. They drain their bank accounts and then are unable to unload their postcards at a profit. Next thing you know, they’re in Chapter Eleven.”
Bankruptcy Monitor quoted the Federal Reserve official as saying it was “extremely unlikely” the Fed would intervene to dampen the speculation or take any steps to protect collectors in bankruptcy. “They have to be responsible for their own destinies,” the official was quoted as saying.
Postcard collector chat rooms on the Internet have been filled in recent weeks with lengthy discussions about whether the rampant speculation could be the work of terrorist groups or identity theft gangs operating from Eastern European countries like Romania.
“It’s about time that the Bush Administration and Homeland Security got to the bottom of this,” one chat room participant wrote. “There’s more to this than just collectors. It’s a matter of national security,” he said.