A mini-rant.
I’m confused and annoyed by the differences between using an ATM card versus a credit card when making a purchase. I like the idea of not using cash, but…
When I use a credit card, the merchant pays something like 1% to 3% of the transaction — sometimes up to 5%. Merchant margins are pretty thin as it is, and they shouldn’t be penalized for accepting payment. And there’s not much security at all; the card is run to see if there’s credit, and a signature is somehow stored. If the card is stolen, I’m responsible for only the first $50, usually, and sometimes even that is waived. The card company gets to collect interest, so they’d really like me to spend spend spend.
When I use a debit card, I usually pay a transaction fee between 25 cents and a dollar. Why am I paying to buy something? The money comes directly out of my checking account, which is good except it means I really should keep track of every transaction. The bank doesn’t get any interest; it would actually like me not to be spending the money I’ve got in my account.
I suppose I think all these transactions should be service-charge-free. The banks and credit card companies will extract their pound of flesh without having to ding every transaction. And there should be some better form of security, but I can’t imagine what it would be till we have biometrics all over the place.
Speaking of which: I’m still annoyed that checking bank statements don’t track the name of the payee on every check and the name of the payor on every deposit. Shouldn’t this be part of their data?