4 ms·

"How is no one fixing this industry?" You can, and many people do, live a no-credit-card lifestyle. Need something from an online store? Amazon and other ret

by niggler 14y ago

"How is no one fixing this industry?" You can, and many people do, live a no-credit-card lifestyle. Need something from an online store? Amazon and other retailers offer store accounts with direct billing (search for "Amazon.com Store Card") and more favorable terms. If you find the practice shady, you as a customer can choose not to use a credit card. Use a debit card, or just pay cash. The problem is that customers like credit cards: it lets you buy stuff now!

NateDad 14y ago
Debit cards aren't really any better.
- de90 14y ago
  How come?
  - niggler 14y ago
    Visa and/or Mastercard (two of the Credit Card companies) are involved in most debit card transactions
cma 14y ago
Until the consumer banking stuff passed under Obama you really had no choice but to participate. Card companies enforced merchant agreements which wouldn't let merchants charge people less for not using a card (though some states banned such agreements prior to the federal change). Merchants would lose business if they didn't accept cards, and card companies were basically able to squeeze them until such loss of business was barely more painful than just going through with it. A slight market correction came in the form of competition between card companies to give cash-back deals. This essentially rebated some of the fee back to the consumer (if an Ayn Rand nutjob saw a government bureaucratic scheme half as complex they would explode with anger). People with cash couldn't opt out; they still had to pay the same as card users, but now those merchant agreements have been restricted by law.
- twoodfin 14y ago
  Cash discounts have always been allowed by most/all merchant agreements. Dodd-Frank forced merchant agreements to allow minimum purchase requirements (boo!) and to allow discounts for other forms of payment (e.g. debit cards) and not only cash.
  - cma 14y ago
    >most/all merchant agreements. Typically only in states that had their own law enforcing that restriction on merchant agreements.
ryguytilidie 14y ago
But thats missing a LOT of the point. The fact that credit card companies are taking so much out of the economy makes the economy much less efficient, this isn't solved by one simple action from little old me.

by niggler 14y ago

NateDad 14y ago

Debit cards aren't really any better.

de90 14y ago
How come?
- niggler 14y ago
  Visa and/or Mastercard (two of the Credit Card companies) are involved in most debit card transactions

cma 14y ago

Until the consumer banking stuff passed under Obama you really had no choice but to participate. Card companies enforced merchant agreements which wouldn't let merchants charge people less for not using a card (though some states banned such agreements prior to the federal change). Merchants would lose business if they didn't accept cards, and card companies were basically able to squeeze them until such loss of business was barely more painful than just going through with it. A slight market correction came in the form of competition between card companies to give cash-back deals. This essentially rebated some of the fee back to the consumer (if an Ayn Rand nutjob saw a government bureaucratic scheme half as complex they would explode with anger). People with cash couldn't opt out; they still had to pay the same as card users, but now those merchant agreements have been restricted by law.

twoodfin 14y ago
Cash discounts have always been allowed by most/all merchant agreements. Dodd-Frank forced merchant agreements to allow minimum purchase requirements (boo!) and to allow discounts for other forms of payment (e.g. debit cards) and not only cash.
- cma 14y ago
  >most/all merchant agreements. Typically only in states that had their own law enforcing that restriction on merchant agreements.

ryguytilidie 14y ago

But thats missing a LOT of the point. The fact that credit card companies are taking so much out of the economy makes the economy much less efficient, this isn't solved by one simple action from little old me.