So You Dumped Your Credit Cards and are Using Your Debit Card?

[Henry Hawk]

And you sir/madam, are exactly what is wrong with this country.

THAT is a bold statement and very Tollish, I might add.

[Palehorse]

THAT is a bold statement and very Tollish, I might add.

So is injecting religious bullshit into a discussion of something else.

You've posted around me long enough to know if you shovel me shit you'll get a truckload in return.

[Henry Hawk]

So is injecting religious bullshit into a discussion of something else.

You've posted around me long enough to know if you shovel me shit you'll get a truckload in return.

all he said was:

You can thank Scott Brown and all the Democrats.

[Palehorse]

all he said was:

This is but a sip of the true flood of despair and destruction God can reign upon you

http://theunknownzone.us/smf/index.php?topic=17644.msg396379#new

Yeah. . . rigggght! 

S/he is nothing but a REAL troll, utilizing guerilla tactics in posting shite all over the place, then leaving. . 

[Henry Hawk]

Palehorse he made one statement on another thread five minutes AFTER he made this one on this thread...

you just don't like doc, so you jump on him.

that's the way I see it.....do what you want, I'm just making an observation....but, it reminded me of the Troll...that's all.

[Palehorse]

Palehorse he made one statement on another thread five minutes AFTER he made this one on this thread...

you just don't like doc, so you jump on him.

that's the way I see it.....do what you want, I'm just making an observation....but, it reminded me of the Troll...that's all.

Nice. . . thank you. . .

[followsthewolf]

Palehorse he made one statement on another thread five minutes AFTER he made this one on this thread...

you just don't like doc, so you jump on him.

that's the way I see it.....do what you want, I'm just making an observation....but, it reminded me of the Troll...that's all.

I don't see one name being called. He made an observation and offered an opinion about another opinion.

That's a ranting attack?

Hmmm. Gotta rethink what I've observed in the past myself.

[Henry Hawk]

I don't see one name being called. He made an observation and offered an opinion about another opinion.

That's a ranting attack?

Hmmm. Gotta rethink what I've observed in the past myself.

I never said he had a ranting attack......I just made an observation after PH said HE (Doc) is what is wrong with this country...I think that is kind of harsh, but I guess I should just stay out of it.

[Palehorse]

PTSD (Posting Traumatic Stress Disorder) 

[Bo D]

There's more to this than meets the eye ....


Here's the issue. When merchants or service providers accept a credit card, charge card or debit card, they have to pay what's called an interchange, or swipe, fee. This can average 2 to 3 percent of the purchase's price for credit cards and 1 to 2 percent for debit cards each time a card is used to cover a transaction, according to the National Retail Federation.

For years, merchants have complained that the fees are excessive and drive up their prices, which they have to pass on to all customers. But retailers have put up with them because they know that consumers spend more when they use plastic, even their debit cards.

In what was billed as a pro-consumer move, Congress decided, as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, to require the Federal Reserve to set standards to lower the fees. The law says swipe fees should be "reasonable and proportional to the cost incurred by the issuer."

Merchants were elated; bankers, not so much.

The Federal Reserve proposed capping the fees at 12 cents per transaction, more than 70 percent lower than the 2009 average. The Fed also said it would look at an adjustment to the fees to reflect certain issuer costs associated with fraud prevention. The Fed's final ruling is due next month.

Large banks claim that they will lose more than $12 billion in revenue if the Fed's proposal becomes final. Over the past decade, debit card payments have grown more than any other form of electronic payment, increasing to 37.9 billion transactions in 2009, according to the Federal Reserve. In 2009, debit card interchange fees totaled more than $16 billion.

With so much money at stake, the financial services industry and the companies that process debit card payments are lobbying hard to get Congress to revisit the law and do away with the proposed cap, allowing them to continue charging what they want.

An ad campaign funded by the Electronic Payments Coalition, which includes credit unions, banks and payment card networks, is trying to win over consumers to their side. One print ad, with an empty brown wallet to catch your eye, reads: "A new regulation will make your debit card more expensive, less convenient, or disappear altogether. Giant retailers lobbied hard for this rule because they wanted you - instead of them - to foot the bill for using your debit card."

The ad carries the tag line "Washington is helping you clean out your wallet."

Now, the fact is that retailers already pass along the interchange fees to consumers in the form of higher prices. And it's the debit card issuers who will make your cards more expensive or less convenient. To cover lost revenue from lower swipe fees, the financial institutions say they may have to impose annual fees for debit card users or raise fees for other banking services. Some may stop offering debit cards to customers.

The card issuers can threaten to increase fees - and follow through on those threats - because they have already gotten you to think that debit cards are so much better than using cash. In fact, some of you even believe that using your debit card is the same as using cash. (By the way, it isn't.)

So it appears we can't win this fight. Even with lower swipe fees, there's no guarantee that merchants would lower retail prices to reflect the break they would be getting.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/09/AR2011030905113.html

[Palehorse]

Exactly Olias. Consumers are screwed no matter what they do; even if they refuse to use debit cards/ credit cards - you are still paying for it.

[Henry Hawk]

we were screwed all along...we are just more aware of it now...and now they will revise on the way they are screwing us...nothing is changing to help us.

[Anne]

Whqt is wrong with just writing a check?

[Palehorse]

Whqt is wrong with just writing a check?

Don't think that is exempt. They'll be charging per check too once the figure out that consumers have stopped using debit cards.

To an early comment about using a debit card as a credit card; a lot of retailers do not accept debit cards under a credit transactions. . .

[The Troll]

THAT is a bold statement and very Tollish, I might add.

   Wow!  Troll is becoming a Verb, thank you Herry Fhawk.