Ron@TheWisdomJournal’s last blog post..Don’t Ignore This Loan!

I do agree with many of the benefits you’ve pointed out. It should be noted that I enjoy participating in most of them with my debit card. On the few that are specific only to credit cards, I’ve chose to sacrifice those benefits in favor of a credit card free life. My wife and I have decided we obtain far more benefit from using cash, debit, and not borrowing money at all.

Once again, I appreciate you shedding over 25 years of personal experience from the other side of the fence. It really helps add to the value for others!

I’ve had credit cards for at least 25 years and consider them a total blessing.

They save me time when purchasing compared to writing checks or counting out cash;
They allow me to buy online with ease;
They allow me to travel around the world without worrying about currency exchange rates and at least in my experience, give me far better exchange rates than I could get otherwise;
They give me a detailed record of my expenditures and often even provide a contact number for any vendor with whom I didn’t sign a receipt;
They allow me to pay them automatically by direct transfer from my bank;
They help me avoid carrying large amounts of cash that can be stolen or lost;
They give me a 1-2% discount on almost every penny I spend – a better rate today than I can get on CDs;
They save on postage, stationary and trips to the post office for mailing checks to pay my bills;
They allow me to make most recurring payments automatically and without any worry about anything getting lost in the mail, which would incur late fees or damage my credit;
They look out for possible misuse of my card. (Although I’ve never experienced any, I have a friend whose been called twice about suspicious charges that were, indeed, a result of identity theft);
In my experience at least, their telephone customer service representatives are uniformly polite, helpful, and authorized to do their best to take care of you (at least, if you’re a good customer). Back when I used to pay by mail, I did rarely get a payment in late, and if I called and pointed out how rare that was, I usually got the fee reversed.
AND THEY ARE WILLING TO DO ALL THIS FOR FREE, AS LONG AS YOU FOLLOW THEIR RULES AND PAY OFF THE CARD IN FULL EACH MONTH!!! I haven’t paid a nickel to a credit card company in years, and yet they continue providing me all of the above services on a DAILY basis, since between personal and business credit cards, I probably charge something at least once a day.

On top of all that, they are willing to lend you money quickly, conveniently and at much better rates for small, short-term loans than most of the available options, if you want to borrow money that way. (I don’t; for real borrowing, I don’t use credit cards, I use a low-rate (currently 3%) line of credit.)

So the simple solution is – pick one: 1) read and follow their rules, and therefore get all the advantages free, or 2) choose not to follow their rules, accept the advantages they offer but accept also that you have to pay for them, or 3) don’t use them.

What’s to hate?

Yes, they do make a lot of their money on people who don’t follow their rules, but that is probably why they can afford to provide me so many desirable services for free, so I, for one, hope that the so-called “reform” being pushed through isn’t just another example of rewarding irresponsibility by shifting its costs over to the responsible people.

It’s not like credit card companies or any lenders are in such great financial circumstances right now. They are barely able to function, much less are they rolling in dough. Every “consumer protection” will cost them money, and make it that much more likely that some will be forced to reduce services, raise rates elsewhere if they can, or if they can’t, go out of business, reducing competition and making services unavailable to customers whether they are responsible or not.

Not to mention that there’s a lot of irony about a bunch of politicians taking a break from raising tax rates and using the time to try to bludgeon credit card executives into lowering their rates.

These are all good points to ponder, and they add up to revenue for the credit card companies, who of course are trying to make money. Company programs that “search for the highest revenue” are common everywhere. That’s what a for-profit business is supposed to do.

I’m reminded of the scene in “The Jerk” when Steve Martin’s character finally figures out that it doesn’t matter if he guesses the age or weight correctly at the fair booth – people are paying a few bucks for the chance to win some worthless trinket.

“Oh, I get it. It’s a profit deal.”

Clair