A debt culture gone awry

[Edi]

If somebody steals your debit card and gets your PIN code, you're fucked unless you can prove that it wasn't you who used that money. However, if the price of the purchase is greater than €50, they are required to check your identity at the time of purchase and you need an ID card with a photo, driver's license, passport or similar official ID for that as well as sign the receipt.

There are starting to be these new readers where you enter the pin instead of signing, though, so in some sense it is more dangerous since it is easy to see somebody enter their PIN and if the card is stolen afterward...

In any case, I've never understood people paying for stuff they can't afford out of pocket unless we're talking about a car or a house. If I don't have the cash, I don't buy it. The amount of money accumulating in my account as savings is ridiculous compared to my pay because apart from the bills and the groceries, I don't spend much at all. Granted that my monthly bills are less than many people have due to owning my place (maintenance fees are less than half the rent for an apartment like that one), but it's still ridiculous. I can't understand how people can waste so much money, but it might be the habits I learned from my parents of using everything until it disintegrates plays a part. They grew up after the war, when there wasn't anything and you had to make do with anything you could get.

[Edi]

Speaking of why we're in so much debt, Hook 'em while they're young

That, in my view, has always been the height of moronity. Have two identical pieces of clothing, but slap some fucking label on it and suddenly one costs €20 and the other costs €150. I have yet to hear an explanation that doesn't involve attempts to justify theft or just out and out bullshit.

The price of clothing in general has become appalling and is in no way at all related to any real world costs of manufacture etc. The really telling part is that every year you see end of season sales where they sell stuff with 50% to 70% off the label price and it's a fact of life that businesses do not sell at a loss year after year, which means that most shit in clothing stores costs at least twice what it's worth.

[Superman]

If somebody steals your debit card and gets your PIN code, you're fucked unless you can prove that it wasn't you who used that money.

It's a pain in the ass to report theft, or a huge inconvenience at the very least, but I've never heard of anyone actually having to pay because of a theft.. and I've talked to a lot of thieves when I was working in the prison system. There's an investigation and the banks receive their insurance reimbursement.

[Superman]

In regards to theft, here's the policy for my check card. Just got it from my bank's website.

Zero Liability. If your card is lost or stolen, Bank of America reimburses you for any unauthorized card transactions up to the amount of the loss, when reported within 60 days from statement date.

[FSTargetDrone]

If somebody steals your debit card and gets your PIN code, you're fucked unless you can prove that it wasn't you who used that money.

It's a pain in the ass to report theft, or a huge inconvenience at the very least, but I've never heard of anyone actually having to pay because of a theft.. and I've talked to a lot of thieves when I was working in the prison system. There's an investigation and the banks receive their insurance reimbursement.

Two years ago, someone in an Eastern European country (I forget which one now, but it doesn't matter) somehow accessed my check card information and used it to buy approximately $400 worth of electronic equipment. My bank called me after the purchase was completed, informing me that "unusual" activity was noted (the fact that the card was used overseas) and if I indeed made such a purchase. I told the bank no and my account was closed and a new account was opened for me with a new card. It was a bit of a hassle because I had various things like Amazon and other online stores attached to that account, but otherwise painless and was sorted out within a few days. I wasn't liable for the charges. My bank evidently did an investigation of some kind, but whatever they learned, I have no idea.

I generally use my check card for small purchases, but I did once use it to buy a computer, spending nearly $2000. The bank called me at that time, asking if I made such a purchase and I authorized it.

[Broomstick]

If money from your bank account is drained, the bank typically will reimburse you up to the Federally Insured limit. I think that's 10,000, but many banks will reimburse more.

Actually, the limit is 100,000, not 10,000

As with all financial plastic, you must read the rules from your issuer. Certainly, if a card is stolen whether it's debit or credit you need to report it as stolen as soon as possible.

I've been using debit cards for things such as grocery purchases for years with no problem. On the other hand, we check our accounts on line very frequently. We've had to challenge charges once in awhile, but have always had the matter resolved in our favor.

We do have a credit card for such things as emergencies, and sometimes use it to pay for on-line or retail purchases but when we do the latter we pay it off at the end of the month.

[Dahak]

If somebody steals your debit card and gets your PIN code, you're fucked unless you can prove that it wasn't you who used that money. However, if the price of the purchase is greater than €50, they are required to check your identity at the time of purchase and you need an ID card with a photo, driver's license, passport or similar official ID for that as well as sign the receipt.

There are starting to be these new readers where you enter the pin instead of signing, though, so in some sense it is more dangerous since it is easy to see somebody enter their PIN and if the card is stolen afterward...

In any case, I've never understood people paying for stuff they can't afford out of pocket unless we're talking about a car or a house. If I don't have the cash, I don't buy it. The amount of money accumulating in my account as savings is ridiculous compared to my pay because apart from the bills and the groceries, I don't spend much at all. Granted that my monthly bills are less than many people have due to owning my place (maintenance fees are less than half the rent for an apartment like that one), but it's still ridiculous. I can't understand how people can waste so much money, but it might be the habits I learned from my parents of using everything until it disintegrates plays a part. They grew up after the war, when there wasn't anything and you had to make do with anything you could get.

Thy fun thing is, that today they don't need to steal it. They just copy the card when you use it....
And for EC card usage in Germany, you can use the PIN system or sign a receipt. It depends on the store and the like. But I never need to show my passport or anything for any transaction.
Most banks are easily willing to reimburse customers in case of theft here. The big reason being that they fear all those people are going to the press and tell how unsafe the system is and thus cause massive widespread disbelief in the system.

[salm]

Thy fun thing is, that today they don't need to steal it. They just copy the card when you use it....
And for EC card usage in Germany, you can use the PIN system or sign a receipt. It depends on the store and the like. But I never need to show my passport or anything for any transaction.
Most banks are easily willing to reimburse customers in case of theft here. The big reason being that they fear all those people are going to the press and tell how unsafe the system is and thus cause massive widespread disbelief in the system.

Actually i´ve been asked for my ID a couple of times when paying with EC card but it happens extremely rarely.
What i find a bit strange though is that a passport is not required when getting money from your bank account if you don´t do it at the machine but in the bank itself. I did that the other day and all i had to do is give them my account number and then sign a little paper slip. My signature is so unreadable that it could mean anything and the number of bank accounts is rather public. So anyone could just walk into a bank and plunder my bank account if he had my number and the balls to do it.

[Dahak]

Thy fun thing is, that today they don't need to steal it. They just copy the card when you use it....
And for EC card usage in Germany, you can use the PIN system or sign a receipt. It depends on the store and the like. But I never need to show my passport or anything for any transaction.
Most banks are easily willing to reimburse customers in case of theft here. The big reason being that they fear all those people are going to the press and tell how unsafe the system is and thus cause massive widespread disbelief in the system.

Actually i´ve been asked for my ID a couple of times when paying with EC card but it happens extremely rarely.
What i find a bit strange though is that a passport is not required when getting money from your bank account if you don´t do it at the machine but in the bank itself. I did that the other day and all i had to do is give them my account number and then sign a little paper slip. My signature is so unreadable that it could mean anything and the number of bank accounts is rather public. So anyone could just walk into a bank and plunder my bank account if he had my number and the balls to do it.

That's only when you have the card (at least for my bank, Citibank). When I needed money and couldn't get it through the card because it had been locked during the incident, I went to a cashier and had to show him my passport to verify myself...

[Edi]

Over here it's the law that you need to ask ID for purchases above €50. Failure to do so could cost the person his or her job, so they follow it pretty damned religiously.

We've also had some copying cases, where they install a snugly fitting extra facade with a magnetic copier over an ATM. With the newer cards being chip-based, they can't copy them easily anymore. The cards also have a magnetic stripe, but almost all ATMs and other such things here use the chip readers by default, with magnetic strip reading only in older machines and as a backup in the newer ones.

[Beowulf]

Speaking of why we're in so much debt, Hook 'em while they're young

That, in my view, has always been the height of moronity. Have two identical pieces of clothing, but slap some fucking label on it and suddenly one costs €20 and the other costs €150. I have yet to hear an explanation that doesn't involve attempts to justify theft or just out and out bullshit.

The price of clothing in general has become appalling and is in no way at all related to any real world costs of manufacture etc. The really telling part is that every year you see end of season sales where they sell stuff with 50% to 70% off the label price and it's a fact of life that businesses do not sell at a loss year after year, which means that most shit in clothing stores costs at least twice what it's worth.

It's called price discrimination. Certain people are willing to pay more, so therefore it's alright to fleece them. Airlines do this, in a sense. First class tickets cost more, even though the end result (you getting to your destination) is identical.

Similarly, brand name apple juice costs more, even though it's the same price as store brand. If people didn't buy the more expensive product, then price discrimination wouldn't work. Thing is, people do.

[Darth Wong]

It's called price discrimination. Certain people are willing to pay more, so therefore it's alright to fleece them. Airlines do this, in a sense. First class tickets cost more, even though the end result (you getting to your destination) is identical.

That's not as egregious because you're actually getting more for your money, objectively speaking. The first-class passenger gets more space on the plane, and other niceties, all of which are real. Clothing labels, on the other hand, are nothing more than status symbols and there is often no objective superiority at all.

[mr friendly guy]

Personally I don't see a problem with people buying expensive things, if they can afford it. Its your life, and if the "psychological value" of a label makes you happy, thats your perogative. You won't see me buying a label unless its cheap, but hey, whatever makes you happy. Unfortunately most people can't afford it and then we get into this cycle of debt and people blaming the credit card rather than their own stupidity and lack of self control.

Generally I use a credit card for convenience, rather than because I don't have the money. I always pay it off before the time is up and still manage to save high proportions of my income. And this is coming from a guy who buys autograph photos of sci fi actors and an army of motorised daleks.

[Edi]

It's called price discrimination. Certain people are willing to pay more, so therefore it's alright to fleece them. Airlines do this, in a sense. First class tickets cost more, even though the end result (you getting to your destination) is identical.

Similarly, brand name apple juice costs more, even though it's the same price as store brand. If people didn't buy the more expensive product, then price discrimination wouldn't work. Thing is, people do.

First class ticket actually gets you service and more space that is not available to the plebes, hence the analogy does not apply. The apple juice thingy depends on the actual content of the juice. There's apple juice and then there's apple juice and the good stuff costs a lot more than the shit produced from concentrate even when they are both advertised with the same terms.

But take a basic, good quality cotton T-Shirt, otherwise completely identical to each other, color, texture, weave, but one of them has a Tommy Hilfiger label sewn onto it. How the fuck is that T-Shirt worth €50 more than the non-branded one? Obviously people are morons, but do you have an argument that does not involve justifying what amounts to theft or conning them or other similar bullshit. Objectively the product is the same in all respects except for a little cloth label that does not add any functionality or superior qualities to the item.

[Darth Wong]

The ultimate scam is still bottled water. Even the worst fashion industry excesses can't hold a candle to that. And as a recent National Geographic article pointed out, not only does it produce an enormous amount of waste and consume enormous amounts of money, but it leads people to put less emphasis on municipal water treatment systems when it comes to budget time. That hurts everyone.

[Darth Servo]

That, in my view, has always been the height of moronity. Have two identical pieces of clothing, but slap some fucking label on it and suddenly one costs €20 and the other costs €150. I have yet to hear an explanation that doesn't involve attempts to justify theft or just out and out bullshit.

To make it worse, people wearing the name brand essentially amounts to free advertising for the company.

The price of clothing in general has become appalling and is in no way at all related to any real world costs of manufacture etc. The really telling part is that every year you see end of season sales where they sell stuff with 50% to 70% off the label price and it's a fact of life that businesses do not sell at a loss year after year, which means that most shit in clothing stores costs at least twice what it's worth.

Back in ~1994, Burger King had a special for their Whopper selling for $1. I remember reading a quote from them saying they were still making a killing even at that price.

[The Grim Squeaker]

The ultimate scam is still bottled water. Even the worst fashion industry excesses can't hold a candle to that. And as a recent National Geographic article pointed out, not only does it produce an enormous amount of waste and consume enormous amounts of money, but it leads people to put less emphasis on municipal water treatment systems when it comes to budget time. That hurts everyone.

I feel compelled to note that although I agreed with this up until now, recent events concerning my village's self owned, private spring not meeting basic safety standards and resulting in our purchasing a truckload of bottled water everyday force me to say otherwise. (And before the survivlaists pipe up, no, it's still unsafe in quantity even when boiled).

Bottled water is usually a scam, but it often does taste better (In the English countryside the tap water begins as brown and still tasted like brown when drunk, bottled water tastes a fuck ton better than it, and it's not a "perception" issue, we had bottles filled up at the motels and we could taste the difference in a half second even after the bottles had been mixed up).
Still, I eagerly await a return to tap water, even if it does taste worse and still costs us almost as much due to the moral issues

[The Jester]

But take a basic, good quality cotton T-Shirt, otherwise completely identical to each other, color, texture, weave, but one of them has a Tommy Hilfiger label sewn onto it. How the fuck is that T-Shirt worth €50 more than the non-branded one?

Somehow marketing is supposed to add value to a product. Beats me how that actually works, but somehow inflating the desirability of a product through the use of branding, lavish advertising and preying on people's insecurities is supposed to make something more valuable. And with such large profit margins per item sold, the fashion industry can afford to pay huge sums for advertising, fashion models and designers. So in the end we have massively overpaid fashion models whose lifestyles are covered by the media which the impressionable among us wish to emulate, presented in a form that shows how wonderful their life is by being fashionable, so we shell out for the ridiculously overpriced luxury items and thus bringing more money to these leeches. It's a nice, self-perpetuating cycle.

[K. A. Pital]

The ultimate scam is still bottled water.

Americans should go further and fight the green menace of the dreadful Kyoto protocol and Global Warming myth.

I suggest bottled air.

After all, who needs to cut down emissions when you can buy clean air from Weyland-Yutani?

[Darth Wong]

The price of clothing in general has become appalling and is in no way at all related to any real world costs of manufacture etc. The really telling part is that every year you see end of season sales where they sell stuff with 50% to 70% off the label price and it's a fact of life that businesses do not sell at a loss year after year, which means that most shit in clothing stores costs at least twice what it's worth.

Back in ~1994, Burger King had a special for their Whopper selling for $1. I remember reading a quote from them saying they were still making a killing even at that price.

Any kind of "boutique" item is like that. I remember once talking a guy into taking 40% off the cost of a piece of stereo equipment. He took the deal and made the sale, but he must have still made a profit at that price, or he would have refused. The levels of markup for any kind of "fashion-conscious" or "upscale" item are generally absurd.

When it comes to fashion in particular, what people don't realize is that the exorbitant price tag is part of the perceived value of the product. The whole point of wearing that overpriced junk is to show off to the world how much disposable income you have, so consumers of this kind of product actually want to buy a product that is massively overpriced because of a label. As long as the label is clearly visible for all to see.

[Norseman]

I know I sure as shit would have turned out better if I had known the goddamned difference between Standard Declining interest, and Daily Simple interest coming out of high-school.

shit, I would have done better had I known how to recognize PRINCIPAL and INTEREST.

That's exactly my point. It pisses me off to no end that we can't seem to get our shit together and address the fact that young people are mostly illiterate when it comes to finances. Why can't we get this into a school curriculum? Even a class on writing a fucking basic budget would be great, especially since too many adults don't know how to do it.

In Norwegian high-schools book keeping is a mandatory subject, provided you don't get the crafts line. They also explain how the various loans work, how to calculate interest etc.

Mind you most people probably forget about this the moment they leave school. Still it's something.

The credit card companies are required to do a credit check on you before they can issue a card, and if you're beneath a certain limit they're not allowed to give you one. There are also restrictions on interest and so on.

Mind you Norwegians, and the Norwegian government, seems to be much better at the whole "You can't spend money you don't have."

[Mobius]

Belgium is in the same boat:
My banks ask be to provide the equivalent of a 2 months of max spending i could make before giving me a credit card (that i use only for amazon and other on-line retailer and when i travel to a country where my Maestro card doesn't work)

[aerius]

The price of clothing in general has become appalling and is in no way at all related to any real world costs of manufacture etc. The really telling part is that every year you see end of season sales where they sell stuff with 50% to 70% off the label price and it's a fact of life that businesses do not sell at a loss year after year, which means that most shit in clothing stores costs at least twice what it's worth.

I used to work in retail way back when, let's just say the cost price of the clothing is around 10% of what the store sells it for. That's right, we took the clothing items and marked them up about 10 times before selling it to the public. Other than illegal drugs, I can't think of too many things which are this profitable.

[PainRack]

People need to educate themselves when it comes to financial responsibility. I'm always amazed at friends I have who don't even know what things like "APR" actually mean, and yet they charge crap on their plastic all the time.

In my case, my parents did zero when it came to imparting any kind of financial knowledge to me. I learned by making stupid mistakes, but I'm glad I managed to learn. A lot of people don't.

Its odd..... My friends here, who are generally quite okay with managing their finances, see no qualms in using their credit cards. Their idea is that as long as they pay the balance every month, its a worthwhile deal because of the credit card points and other discount deals they can cash in on.

I never really ran the math, but I have a gut feeling that the two or three times we go out and any other miscellaneous discount/points they earn doesn't offset the credit card fee.

Since they generally live less lavishly than me and have more free cash, I don't have the moral authority to point that out. Still, it irks me. For people less finanicially savy, their whole idea of credit card balance is to just pay enough of the balance so that no additional charges/interests are wrought..... Everyone else seems to ignore the steady hemorrhage of money from credit card fees.

[PainRack]

I used to work in retail way back when, let's just say the cost price of the clothing is around 10% of what the store sells it for. That's right, we took the clothing items and marked them up about 10 times before selling it to the public. Other than illegal drugs, I can't think of too many things which are this profitable.

Don't most of the cost in retail come from rental and storage costs?