4 ms·
Checks are only for big purchases, with vendors who know me well. Last was in 2008, for a washer and dryer bought from a GE dealership who's building was purch
by hga 12y ago
Checks are only for big purchases, with vendors who know me well. Last was in 2008, for a washer and dryer bought from a GE dealership who's building was purchased from my family decades ago.
If there's a potential for a line, or a vendor who doesn't know me from Adam, as when I bought a water softener, I do use a credit card.
I personally think the overhead for routine use of cash is roughly equivalent to routinely using a credit or debit card, e.g. I don't have to keep track of all those purchases to reconcile them with my monthly statement. Carrying cash is no problem, counting change ... well, I grew up before credit card usage was routine, so it's second nature, and reorganizing the bills etc. takes very little time. It helps that I have a standard load out that's makes refreshing my wallet easy, as well as making change, at least half the time I provide exact change, or an amount that makes my return change easy. Doing the mental math also has its advantages.
Don't know how I've managed it, but I've never needed to do a charge back in 31 years of using credit cards. Certainly there's not much potential for fraud in my face to face translations.
My youngest bother and his wife used to regularly shop at Target; that turned out be a significant hassle due to the recent breach. Hmmm, and only I can quantify the value of increased peace of mind by limiting my exposure to credit card fraud.
Credit and debit cards also "lose".
- sanswork 12y agoI think the counting cash is more on the merchant side. Managing, securing and depositing cash in your account isn't free(and the cost does often change with the amount). The fact that you haven't needed to do a chargeback doesn't mean you haven't benefited from the existence of them. The fear of a chargeback forces merchants to act in your best interest. What hassle did your brother experience with the breach did he not just have a replacement card mailed out?
- hga 12y agoThe details of the hassle weren't mentioned, but if one of mine was breached there would be accounts charging recurring payments that would need the new numbers. It also took a long while for the breach to be realized, they might have had issues with bogus charges on their cards. And it would be at least two cards, one each for him and his wife.
- sanswork 12y agoCredit card companies now a days tend to keep the existing recurring payments going even when they cancel your card for these types of reasons up until it would normally expire so thats not a real problem any more. If they had bogus charges it would have been dealt with the same as any credit card fraud. They would sign a statement that they didn't make the charges. The funds would be reversed and they'd be sent new cards. The fact that they know its related to Target means they probably didn't have those issues.