Good Credit

Advertisements for American Express may tout extreme measures taken in the spirit of customer service, but for its clientele of mostly Mexican and Salvadoran immigrants, the in-store credit bureau at Dearden’s department store downtown puts plastic to shame.

“When the Immigration Reform Act of 1986 was passed, a lot of immigrants were able to verify their immigration status based on records from Dearden’s,” explains Ronny Bensimon, the store’s vice president and general manager. Many didn’t have gas bills or rent stubs, but all those monthly receipts for the baby carriages, basinets, dinette sets, cassette players and overstuffed furniture bought on credit confirmed that they were, indeed, here. On the strength of those receipts, thousands of Dearden’s customers became U.S. citizens.

In-store credit bureaus were less a rarity when Edgar Dearden, an immigrant from England, opened his furniture store on Main Street in 1910. Labor-intensive, occupying several hundred square feet of retail space, most credit bureaus were phased out with the credit card. Nevertheless, a healthy credit bureau has not only ensured Dearden’s survival on Main Street’s forsaken Furniture Row, it also has fueled the store’s expansion into other neighborhoods.

“Ninety-five percent are Latinos,” Bensimon says of his customer base, “and they’re in very low-paid jobs, so they cannot get MasterCard or Visa. This is, in the majority of cases, their first credit.”

Dearden’s has introduced some innovations to the anachronistic in-store credit formula. Account holders can cash their payroll checks at the store free of charge. (“A large majority of our customers don’t have bank accounts,” Bensimon notes.) Dearden’s air travel service, launched two years ago, enables them to buy tickets on credit to visit relatives, while pacts with department stores in Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras enable customers to purchase furniture or electronics for loved ones there, chargeable to their Dearden’s account.

While commitment to the Dearden’s customer has fallen short of overt political activism, the company did allow voter registration tables in its six stores last fall. It’s not inconceivable that the Santa Ana Dearden’s might have played a part in the defeat of one of undocumented immigration’s most outspoken foes. “We want to think,” Bensimon says, “that we had something to do with Dornan losing.”