Entry in progress—B.P.
   
Urban Dictionary
deadbeat
In creddit card industry lingo a deadbeat is soemone who DOES pay their bills on time and thus makes no profit.
Forget the deadbeats, up the compulsive shoppers credit limit another $5000 and double their rate.
by B3++y Jan 31, 2005
 
(Oxford English Dictionary)
dead beat, dead-beat, ppl. a. (n.2)
slang (orig. U.S.). A worthless idler who sponges on his friends; a sponger, loafer; also (orig. Austral.), a man down on his luck. Also attrib. Cf. BEAT n.1 16.
1863 Cornhill Mag. Jan. 94 ‘Beau’ Hickman [was] a professional pensioner, or, in the elegant phraseology of the place ‘a deadbeat’.
1875 Chicago Tribune 13 Oct. 4/4 To go on a dead-beat spree.
1877 BLACK Green Past. xli. (1878) 325 A system of local government controlled by 30,000 bummers, loafers, and dead-beats.
1882 B. HARTE Flip ii, Every tramp and dead-beat you’ve met.
1898 MORRIS Austral Eng. 115/2 Deadbeat. In Australia, it means a man ‘down on his luck’, ‘stone-broke’, beaten by fortune.
1902 W. SATCHELL Land of Lost iii. 18 This is the stranding-ground of the dead-beats of the world.
             
Google Books
The Consumer credit protection act amendments of 1977:
Hearings before the Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs of the Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs, House of Represenatives, Ninety-fifth Congress, first session, on H.R. 8753
By United States. Congress. House. Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs. Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs.
Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office
1977
Pg. 886:
Title II would prohibit the assessment of a minimum finance charge or service fee on cardholders who, strangely, are called “deadbeats” because they pay their bills on time, not because they don’t pay their bills on time.
 
Google Books
The Financially Confident Woman
By Mary Hunt
Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers
1996
Pg. 106:
Ironically, cardholders who pay on time are known among industry insiders as “deadbeats” because they aren’t paying their share of interest.
 
Google Books
November 1996, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine, pg. 16, col. 2:
CREDIT
Free rides are on the way out
YOUR CREDIT RECORD is squeaky clean, you pay your bills in full each month, and you’re savvy enough to seek out a credit card that costs you nothing and earns rebates to boot. But you generate little or no interest revenue for card issuers, who are apt to consider you a deadbeat. And they want you to pay up.
   
Google Books
December 1996, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine, pg. 6, col. 2:
CREDIT CARD “DEADBEATS”
I READ YOUR November article about companies that view customers who pay their credit card bills on time as deadbeats (‘The Months Ahead”). They’re complaining that they can’t make enough money on those of us who pay our entire balance each month, even with the kickback they get from merchants. But if they routinely charged reasonable interest rates, people might be tempted to leave balances in their accounts.
JERRY BLOCK
Newton, N.J.
 
Eight Things A Credit Card User Should Know (November 23, 2004)
Which Are You?
Here’s the credit card industry’s jargon for its customer categories:
“Revolvers” roll credit card balances over month to month, never paying in full.
“Deadbeats” pay their balances off in full every month.
“Rate Surfers” or “Gamers” shift usage between credit cards based upon interest rates.
   
Google Books
The 4 Simple Secrets to Avoiding Life’s Big Financial Messtakes Rediscovering the Simple Secrets to a Great Income, Financial Independence and Most Importantly, a Great Life!
By Tom Mccawley
Advantage Media Group
2009
Pg. 107:
In the banking world, they call the people who pay off their credit cards on time, deadbeats! Obviously this is because the banks don’t make any money from these credit card users. In this case, I suggest being a deadbeat!
   
The New Ledger 
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009
This Story Will Have Legs: Congress Takes Aim At Credit Deadbeats
by Francis Cianfrocca
Do you pay off your credit cards in full every month? Something like one-third of all credit-card users do. If you pay in full within the grace period every month, the bank can’t charge you any interest. And many cards no longer have an automatic annual fee. So people who manage their use of credit prudently don’t generate a lot of income for the banks that issue their credit cards.
 
The credit card industry has an utterly charming term for people like me (and perhaps you) who pay off their balances every month: “deadbeats.” Now, as a result of new rules being considered by Congress and cheer-led by the President in his most recent taxpayer-funded campaign speeches, credit card issuers will be taking aim at deadbeats.
 
Huffington Post
Jill Schlesinger
Editor-at-Large, CBS MoneyWatch.com
Posted: May 20, 2009 04:56 PM
Credit Card Reform Stinks for Responsible Consumers (aka “Deadbeats”)
When the Senate passed the “Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act” by a 90-5 margin yesterday, I thought “Guess who’s going to get screwed again? Responsible people who pay their bills on time!”
(...)
On “The CBS Early Show” this morning, I outlined the ways that consumers who routinely pay off credit card balances—also called “deadbeats” by the card companies, because they can’t make money on us—might end up paying more for the privilege of credit.