If it were Baldrick
He'd probably buy a turnip the size of a planet.
Paypal makes man 1000x as rich as the ENTIRE HUMAN RACE
A public relations boss briefly became the world's first quadrillionaire after a PayPal slip-up made him the richest man on the planet. Chris Reynolds, from Delaware, opened up his monthly PayPal statement and was astonished to find he had suddenly been handed a whopping $92,233,720,368,547,800 - roughly 1000 times as much as …
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Thursday 18th July 2013 12:48 GMT andy 103
Re: Interest
Here we go, someone trying to come up with a "serious" point about something that's clearly happened in error.
Along the same lines - if he'd received a bill (rather than credit) in error for this amount, then technically should he have to pay some of it or the interest for the time over which the error wasn't spotted?
The answer - in both cases - is obviously no.
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Thursday 18th July 2013 18:28 GMT Don Jefe
Re: Interest
Your PayPal balance does accrue interest if you sign up for their money market service. You can lose at it too although they haven't ever lost any of my money. The rate is better than most savings accounts. I certainly wouldn't trust it as a place to store large amouts but it's nice to have a little there.
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Thursday 18th July 2013 07:21 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: @Zmodem
No, multiple credit cards are for the poor, a single credit card is for either the incredibly poor, or the wise.
Single credit card with cashback or something similar, constant use rather than debit card and making sure that you pay off the credit card fees on time means that you'll make money back off the account (more than you would interest on a debit account) and build up your credit score since for some reason they use your credit cards to check this.
On the other hand for the uber poor who've gone bankrupt. One of those 47% apr credit cards can be one of the fastest ways to build their credit back up to a reasonable level.
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Thursday 18th July 2013 08:25 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: @Zmodem
In the UK, when you purchase something with a credit card that is over £100 in value, the credit card company is equally liable for it. This means if the company you purchased it from goes bankrupt, the credit card company has to refund you. This protection is not offered with debit cards.
Additionally, you can arrange for your full credit card balance to be paid off every month which means you do not have to worry about it and do not pay any interest. You effectively get up to eight weeks interest free credit.
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Thursday 18th July 2013 12:32 GMT tony2heads
Re: @Zmodem
Barclays group
ABSA (the local part in South Africa) are contending for the title of worst!
http://www.fin24.com/MyFin24/Detained-over-fraudulent-debit-card-20130613
A man shopping was detained for hours because his card was declared fraudulent by the system; they were waiting for the ABSA fraud check expert to come along
" He proceeded to ask me four or five questions to verify that I was the account holder. That was done in under a minute and I was told everything is fine.
I asked what the problem was and why my family and I were subjected to this. He proceeded to tell me that it was simply an Absa system error and also told us that if he had not come through to verify my identity, I would have spent the remainder of the weekend in jail."
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Thursday 18th July 2013 09:23 GMT mike2R
Re: @Zmodem
The reason to use a credit card rather than a debit card is not so much the level of protection offered - Visa Debit is pretty much as good as a credit card from that point of view. Its just that its a hell of a lot less disruptive to have your available credit nicked than your bank account cleared out, even if you do get the money back down the line.
That said, if you want to be nice to the seller on a large purchase, use a debit card. They pay a percentage on credit card transaction, and a flat fee on debit cards.
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Thursday 18th July 2013 10:53 GMT Zmodem
Re: @Zmodem
most people with money have a savings account or an ISA thing
your debit is only linked to your current accoumt
no company will go bankrupt overnight and not dispatch your goods
if you have real money you can just buy a car with your debit card and wave it about better then a gold card
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Thursday 18th July 2013 11:12 GMT Don Jefe
Re: @Zmodem
I bought my wife's SmartCar on my credit card simply because of the cash (points really) back option. I use my credit card for 95% of my purchases. There is no interest as I pay the balance every month, no practical limit, and I have enough reward points to buy all the birthday presents I have to get throughout the year. I also get large discounts on my plane tickets, rental cars and car insurance and don't have to carry much cash.
Not sure where you're getting your financial advice, but you need to find someone new. If you're using cash or debit you aren't realizing the full purchasing power of your money.
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Thursday 18th July 2013 12:55 GMT Tom 13
Re: aren't realizing the full purchasing power of your money.
That's a load of crap and you know it. There's no such thing as a free lunch, so you're paying for those points somewhere. Maybe you're benefiting from cost shifting to the poor who get stuck with 47% rates. More likely you're paying for it in the form of higher prices on the goods you purchase.
There's only one good reason to use a credit card for an internet purchase: fraud protection. Everything else is a rationalization about to justify overspending.
Full disclosure: I've done more rationalizing than most about this in my younger days. I'm spent the last three years trying to clean up the mess I made and am likely to spend the next three years before I'm finished. And I spent the ten years before that pretending I was trying to clean up the mess.
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Thursday 18th July 2013 13:06 GMT Don Jefe
Re: aren't realizing the full purchasing power of your money.
Nobody said free lunch, you have to pay, but why not stretch the dollar a little further. Using my credit card has no down side for me. I have the money for my purchases but if I pay with cash or check I don't get the rewards. The annual card holder fees are trivial next to what I receive in points and less than what I accrue annually in my savings account.
It sounds like you were using your credit cards as short term loans instead of as a cash substitute. That's simply poor financial management. Just because you made poor decisions in the past doesn't mean you can't learn from them and not be scared of credit cards.
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Thursday 18th July 2013 14:28 GMT Tom 13
Re: aren't realizing the full purchasing power of your money.
I'm not scared of them. Still use them for some things while I'm paying off the rest.
But I'm not shaking down people who can't afford the bill by asking for more than what I'm paying for on my credit cards. You may not visibly see the cost, but the cost is still there. This is what turns me off most about liberals and progressives: they lord their "moral superiority of caring about others" over conservatives while screwing them over and claiming they aren't. Pay your own bills including the costs for all those people moving the bits around that represent your money.
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Thursday 18th July 2013 13:10 GMT mike2R
Re: aren't realizing the full purchasing power of your money.
Tom 13 - there is a higher cost in using credit cards, but the way things are at the moment for consumer purchases, these are generally eaten by the merchant. Very few places will make you pay the additional transaction fees for using a credit card rather than a debit card, so any rewards are basically free money to you as long as you don't do something silly like not pay off the balance in full.
B2B transactions, understandably enough, will typically pass the cost on to their customers.
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Thursday 18th July 2013 13:31 GMT Don Jefe
Re: aren't realizing the full purchasing power of your money.
In the US merchant services agreements strictly prohibit the merchant passing on processing fees to the customer beyond a certain set amount that can't be calculated as a percentage of the purchase. Small merchants get around this by offering discounts for cash or minimum purchase amount when using a card.
But yes, if you pay your balance in full every month you are essentially getting free money through the rewards systems.
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Thursday 18th July 2013 14:53 GMT Tom 13
Re: these are generally eaten by the merchant.
These are NEVER eaten by the merchant. The merchant ALWAYS passes them along because he doesn't have any choice about it. Because of the restrictive laws about processing them that means yes they spread them to everybody including customers who pay cash.
This isn't me talking out my ass. This is me telling you I've been the person recommending how we were going to pass the cost along to our customers when our organization implemented our credit card processing system. And the 25 other people in the room (because we were a little d democratic organization at the time) agreeing with me. It isn't rocket science.
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Thursday 18th July 2013 15:37 GMT mike2R
Re: these are generally eaten by the merchant.
I am an ecommerce merchant. We eat the fees on credit card processing.
Merchants do not raise their prices when their costs go up. Trust me on this, we set them at the level where we think we will make the most money. Cost are obviously vitally important, but this "they'll just put their prices up" is a fallacy.
If we could put our prices up without losing more money in lost sales than we were making from the higher price, don't you think we'd have done it already?
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Friday 19th July 2013 13:54 GMT Tom 13
Re: Merchants do not raise their prices when their costs go up.
So when your costs exceed your profit margins you all just happily give stuff away out of the generosity of your hearts?
Fat chance. Somebody in your organization is making damn sure prices keep up with costs, and that includes the costs of credit card processing. They may hide it the same way the whole MBS thing was supposed to hide the high-risk loans, but it works just as effectively.
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Friday 19th July 2013 17:01 GMT mike2R
Re: Merchants do not raise their prices when their costs go up.
If we can't make money doing what we do we shift what we do (as we've done several times over the years) or go out of business.
You're missing the point about pricing. We are not altruistically keeping our prices down when our costs go up, we are deliberately trying to get as much money for our products as humanly possible already. The only reason we are not charging more than we currently do is that people have an annoying habit of buying stuff elsewhere if we do that. There probably are products we could make more money on by charging more, but that is an oversight on my part, and if I can figure out which ones they are I'll put them up first thing on Monday morning, even if our costs were halved.
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Thursday 18th July 2013 11:35 GMT mike2R
Re: @Zmodem
I'd find it pretty damn inconvenient to have my current account out of action - I imagine it would cause all sorts of issues with direct debits and standing orders, and make paying utility bills harder etc.
Nothing impossible, but why not use a credit card and minimise the issue? As long as you pay it off every month there is no downside - I find it helps me control my spending since I get a letter each month telling me how much I've spent in the last month.
Probably should look into the reward thing though. I'm still using the card I got when I was a student and they don't give me anything like that.
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Friday 19th July 2013 17:10 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: @Zmodem
> and if you earn £15-22k a year you can probably put 40-50% of your wages each month into your savings and only need to keep your current account around £1800
You will find that much harder once you are old enough to earn money and to move out of your parents house.
£22k gross = £17,777.76 net which means you will take home £1,481.48 per month. If 50% of this is going to savings this leaves you £740.74 for your rent or mortgage (£550 would be cheap), electricity (£50), council tax (£100), gas (£25), water (£30). You are now digging into your savings and you have still to pay for your phone, broadband, clothes, transport, entertainment, shiny shiny, TV license and subscription, food and a whole lot more.
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Saturday 20th July 2013 08:13 GMT Zmodem
Re: @Zmodem
i find it easy, i live in a council flat on my own, if i earn £1500 a month, i cover all bills and food with the £500, the rent is only £320 and council tax is rubbish and area is full of chavs who never intend to work and cry about you buying milk everyday
mortages are usually cheaper then the average private flat rent of £600-1200 a month, you just need to save the £25,000 mortage deposit
if you bank account gets emptied, and you tell the bank, your debit card is canceled there and then and you will received a new card with the last few digits and the security number on the back changed within 1-3 days
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Saturday 20th July 2013 09:32 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: @Zmodem
> mortages are usually cheaper then the average private flat rent of £600-1200 a month,
The £25k deposit will be 10% which will leave you with £225k to pay off. With a 25 year mortgage at 4% this will mean a monthly repayment of £1200.22. If you only borrow £100k this will still mean a monthly repayment of £533.43 so my estimate of £550 for rent or mortgage isn't unreasonable.
> i cover all bills and food with the £500
£320 rent leaves you with £180 per month for everything else which is less than means tested benefit which will give you a minimum of £56.80 per week (£227.20). In addition, those on means tested benefit can get 100% discount on council tax, reduced cost or even free travel, free or reduced cost to access local amenities, reduced or lower costs for social events (cinema, theatre etc), free prescriptions and eye tests etc.
Like I said, when you stop living with your parents you will realise just how much things cost and how many things you have to actually pay for.
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Thursday 18th July 2013 12:28 GMT garden-snail
Re: @Zmodem
Companies can and do go tits-up overnight. In many cases, outstanding orders are not dispatched, and refunds are not provided.
If you've paid by credit card (and the amount is over £100) you can simply claim your money back from the credit card issuer.
If you've paid by debit card, you are unlikely to ever see your money or your purchase.
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Thursday 18th July 2013 12:37 GMT mike2R
Re: @Zmodem
garden-snail I think that is actually out of date. You are not protected by the same statutory rights as with a credit card, but as a practical matter debit card providers these days have equivalent schemes. This didn't use to be the case, and since it doesn't have legal force it is a weaker protection I suppose, but in practice these days the protection is equivalent.
Still makes sense to use a credit card IMO though.
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Thursday 18th July 2013 13:23 GMT Tom 13
@garden-snail
It's not just the protection for items not shipped. It's also the protection for compromised account numbers. If they get to your bank account, your cash is gone. If they get your credit card they can trash it and your score, but you can get those cleaned up. It's a PITA, but you can clean it up. And while you are cleaning it up, you still have accounts from which you can function.
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Thursday 18th July 2013 12:56 GMT The Man Who Fell To Earth
Actually
As any smart Banker will tell you, making purchases with debit cards are for people who can't get credit and/or don't know how to manage money. Credit cards don't charge interest if you pay your balance off in full every month, in which case they are an interest-free 1-month loan, during which your actual money is earning interest. And if you are smart, you only use credit cards with zero-fees and good reward programs, which adds icing to the cake.
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Thursday 18th July 2013 14:34 GMT Tom 13
Re: Actually
SmartGreedy bankers tell you that because they are raking in the fees from the vendors on all those purchases you make. Fees the vendors have to charge you in the form of higher prices. Plus of course higher taxes because they are "adding more value" to the product when they sell it.I did support for a smallish local bank many years ago. One gentleman who was in the lending department had a cartoon prominently displayed on the wall. I don't recall the start of it anymore (probably something like "cash is temporary), but the punchline was "but a mortgage is forever." Bankers all know where they collect their fees. Sounding like they are giving good advice is even more important to fleecing the sheep.
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Friday 19th July 2013 01:10 GMT jonfr
Re: Actually
That is wrong. Paying directly with hard cash (or debit card) is far better than buying with credit. It is better for the company in question, for you and the economy in general. The current debt culture we have is a big problem, but this what people are willing to do.
If you do not want to loose all your money from card theft the best advice is to keep only limited amount on your card at any given time. The rest on normal none card connected account.
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This topic is closed for new posts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
