Oh, Suze! Say it isn't so.
You've jumped in bed with the prepaid debit card business. How could you?
Suze Orman, you're one of my heroes. You spout and shout good advice on personal finance. You chew us out over our human foibles of spending too much, saving too little, going wild on the credit cards. You're like our favorite aunt, setting us straight.
Your audience loves you for it.
As a personal finance columnist for the little old Post-Dispatch, I wish I could help as many folks in a year as you do in a day.
But in hawking your own financial products, you throw our trust out the window.
Of course, you've done that before. On your website, you're shilling for Select Quote, an on-line insurance sales operation. And you're offering a credit monitoring service (Okay, you call it identity protection and you've added some bells and whistles). For most people, it is a waste of money.
You deserve a good living. Selling books, personal finance courses and your TV shows are just fine. For the most part, you're selling your own good advice.
But some of that advice is about prepaid credit cards, and credit monitoring and insurance. How are we to trust you on those things while you're selling them to us?
There's also a slight sleaze factor in the sales of prepaid cards and credit monitoring. The vast majority of us would be better off not buying them. People would do better with a free checking account offering a free debit card than with your prepaid card, which charges fees. Such cards are suited only for people who have so wrecked their credit that banks won't even give them a checking account.
Cub reporters are taught to avoid conflicts of interest. At the Post-Dispatch, reporters know they they shouldn't invest in companies they regularly cover. We know that people might not believe that we're being straight with them if we have a personal stake in the venture.
The trust of our readers is really all we have.
You apparently see it differently. In a Marketplace Money radio interview, you were asked, “Are you concerned at all that your audience might question you having a card like this, perhaps making money off of them -- however little -- while at the same time counseling them on their money management?”
You replied: “I don't think so. Because the people who have been listening now for almost 30 years, they know that I have earned their trust. They know that I have never put my needs in front of theirs. So I don't personally care what other people say, because I know what I'm doing and the people who follow me know what I'm doing as well. And we will just see who has the last laugh when it comes to the Approved card.”
By the way, Suze, I emailed some questions to your PR people on Monday about conflict of interest. I haven't heard from them yet.
