Credit Card industry explains our obligations

[blackshoe]

Back in the 1980s, when I was much younger, my uncle, who owned two banks, and I were talking about "bounced check" charges, then running about $5 per check. He told me that the actual cost to the bank of processing bounced checks was about 79 cents. So it's not "the credit card industry," it's the banking industry, or perhaps the financial industry as a whole, that uses these shady practices.

[barmar]

Why is there any "cost" to processing bounced checks? They're just numbers in a computer.

 

A bounced check charge is a penalty, not a cost recovery. You promised not to overdraw your account, and you reneged on that promise. If the charge is too low, it won't act as a deterrant.

 

This isn't in the same league as some of the other outrageous practices of banks and CC companies.

[y66]

I got a chuckle out of Scott Adams' (Dilbert guy)'s assertion that studying economics makes you relatively immune to cognitive dissonance. It seems to me that economists, as a profession, have this problem in spades.

[kenberg]

Speaking of Dilbert

 

A long time back Dogbert was a financial adviser to a client:

 

 

Client: Will this investment strategy reduce my taxable incmoe?

Dogbert: Yes

Dogbert's thought cloud: You have no idea how much.