Credit Card Sign-Ups

Way back in the days of Woolworth, there was a lady who worked out front of the Sears department store who had the job of taking credit card applications. Her name was Barbie.  As I looked out the front window of Woolworth, I could see her 2 doors down at the end of the mall working her kiosk at the corner of the front entrance.  Most times she just sat in her chair bored with nobody around, occasionally someone came around to fill out an application.  The table she worked at had a bunch of different items on it that were given away as free gifts for completing an application.  Most times the stuff was junky stuff, but occasionally there was a gem amongst the items on the table.  Such gems were like cups with Sears logo on them, umbrellas with Sears logo on them, and other items with Sears logo on them.  Since my mother knew the lady quite well, she quite often made out fake applications to get the free items.  The reason that Barbie allowed for this was that she was paid a commission for each application taken in and paid an additional commission if the application was approved.  Even though Barbie was paid an hourly wage, she still wanted more no matter if the applications were real or fake.

When Sears and Kmart merged, Barbie found herself no longer at the Kiosk as this position disappeared and so did the commission.  She became an hourly associate until she retired from the company, but she no longer made what she had when doing the kiosk.

While Woolworth didn’t have credit cards and HQ didn’t push them, it was Staples where the credit card sign ups happened in my retail career.  When I started at Staples, there was somewhat of a push on the credit cards.  For each Staples credit card application successfully completed, the employee would receive a dollar for their efforts.  Not a lot but still a little incentive.  Originally, employees called in the credit card applications themselves, but after so many fake applications were discovered, the management had to call in the application to get an approval,  Eventually the incentive went away, it didn’t last a year and the employees no longer were enthusiastic about doing credit applications.

With interest rates when I started around 20%, the cards were not very enticing.  As of this writing, the interest rate is at 29.99% and certainly not very encouraging for the employee nor the customer.  Although, I noticed that I had around 1 or 2 credit applications per week   I guess people will always desire to spend too much and love those high interest rates.

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