58

Legislation known as the Credit Card Competition Act, first introduced in Congress in 2022, is described by its sponsors as encouraging “competition in electronic credit transactions.” But if lawmakers end up passing the measure, opponents say it could also torpedo the rich rewards and perks that cardholders have enjoyed for years.

“Will consumers lose? Probably,” wrote Brian Riley, director of the credit advisory service at Mercator Advisory Group, in an August 2022 post to the Mercator blog. “Their reward programs will dry up, just as they did with debit cards.”

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 19 points 11 months ago

I would use cash today if I didn't need to deal with stupid amounts of change. I don't carry a coin purse and I don't want to, and I prefer my wallet to be thin instead of packed with bills. Some solutions (in the US):

  • abolish the penny - ideally we'd abolish the nickel and dime as well and round to the nearest $0.25
  • include sales tax in the price on the shelf - buying a $0.99 item ends up being $1.08, which means I get a handful of coins with nearly every purchase; if it was included, stores would probably round and eliminate most of my change
  • have better security on debit cards - I don't use mine because of horror stories around fraud; I'm thinking banks would generate a special token for each vendor (i.e. a separate card number) and the user would set a limit on it; if the UX was decent, it could go a long way; if there's a breach, attackers would only be able to spend up to that limit, and only at that vendor

I'm sure there are a million ways to improve things, yet we do none of them. But until cash stops being a nuisance, I'm not going to use it.

[-] lemming007@lemm.ee 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

The $0.99 prices is the stupidest thing in America, I haven't seen it in any other country. Also, agreed on including sales tax and rounding to .25. Would actually make using cash tolerable.

this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2023
58 points (93.9% liked)

Personal Finance

3696 readers
1 users here now

Learn about budgeting, saving, getting out of debt, credit, investing, and retirement planning. Join our community, read the PF Wiki, and get on top of your finances!

Note: This community is not region centric, so if you are posting anything specific to a certain region, kindly specify that in the title (something like [USA], [EU], [AUS] etc.)

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS