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Commentary at credit cards
My wife is very firmly of the opinion that if you can't afford it, don't buy it…
Cost me a lot more than I'll even admit to myself between being defrauded, obscene interest charges and generally too many years on the never-never to get to not only 'see' but to 'understand' her point of view. That said, because I'm far more paranoid than her, I can see a use for the blighted things - used wisely.
If you can't pay the full amount up front you can't afford it, hmmm…
Anyway, I am thinking here for Internet shopping. Basically, charge cards have better fraud protection and insurance than debit cards:
* If you see a $2,000 Rolex on your credit card, delivered to P.O. Box 23, Moscow, you can sure YOU won't be paying for it without a heck of a fight.
* However, the same $2,000 on a debit card has already gone from your bank, probably along with the rest of your money and bank charges for everything that subsequently bounced.
Funnily enough, I absolutely guarantee that even though the fraud is essentially the same, the bank will prove are amazingly more lax to the point of stubborn deniable of liability about the matter - it's YOUR money that's gone, not theirs, after all!
Cynical? Jaded? Perhaps, but tell me I'm wrong! And remember, Identity theft, phishing and related is spiraling out of control. The more the banks lose - and it's billions a year - the more they are going to try and blame you for their lack of security!
The moral here, which applies equally to businesses taking card payments, is to check all the small print first, then get advice on all those ambiguously worded sentences which, in lay terms spell out, You agree to point 36c.vii, we, the bank, get the right to weasel out of any refunds
Jaded? Too ruddy right! Both as a business and as a personal customer I've tried almost major British bank over the years and the catalogue of arrogance, ignorance and legalised fraud I've seen from the lot of them is beyond belief.
