kahr spoke to us five years ago. >> many of the things that i've been involved with were in the back room, on the operating side. >> bergman: kahr had a peculiar genius for enticing new customers with gimmicks that were too good to be true. >> when you are getting something in the mail several times a week that offers you 0% for six months or whatever it may be, they look at the headlines of the solicitation in the mail. they spend 30 seconds on it. and, "okay, i'm going to be better off at the beginning. they are going to give me something, they are going to give me 0% rate." people believe what they want to believe. >> bergman: it was kahr who came up with the ideas and mehta who implemented them, and their innovations would help change the nature of the credit card business. so, providian wasn't alone. >> absolutely not. they may have started it and maybe were the innovators of these bad practices, but they certainly were quickly adopted by everyone else once they started seeing the profit margins. >> bergman: robert mckinley is a credit card analyst who followed the rise of provi