It also prevents credit cards
The ultimate life hack the government doesn't want you to know
Submitted 1 year ago by dramaticcat@sh.itjust.works to [deleted]
https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/d6cc4143-4994-42b6-bac3-57c0718c3f76.webp
Comments
Zink@pawb.social 1 year ago
MadMadBunny@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
That’s the joke
STRIKINGdebate2@lemmy.world 1 year ago
What if someone is starting off getting their first credit card as a teen? Wouldn’t the credit score be zero?
bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Basically, but they call it a thin file (aka no credit history). If you don’t have someone to cosign, they’ll start you off with a secure card, where you pony up a couple hundred bucks and borrow against yourself until you establish good history.
ryathal@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
There’s a difference between bad credit and no credit. Some places refuse both, but you can find places that will deal with no credit.
JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.sdf.org 1 year ago
No teenager should be given a credit card under any circumstances. That’s a great way to find yourself bankrupt.
spacecadet@lemm.ee 1 year ago
In my case, it was with the bank I already had a checking account with and the credit limit was like $500. They normally start you off with a super low limit and a high interest rate.
cacheson@kbin.social 1 year ago
The government doesn't want you to know this, but identities are free. You can just take them. I have 458 identities.
funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Joey Jo Jo Jnr?
Steeve@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Are you my mom?
hulemy@ani.social 1 year ago
Americans getting credit cards so young is so foreign to me. Here you only get a credit card either for business reasons or if you travel internationally where the European standards for debit cards don’t apply
GloveNinja@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I was advised by my family and the ban when I was 16 to get a Credit Card so I could build my credit score. I didn’t really have any good financial awareness and they set me at a $2000 limit. Needless to say that was maxed almost immediately and took years of developing discipline to get under control. I still struggle with CCs now and then… They’re too easy to come by and too hard to break free of
hulemy@ani.social 1 year ago
Where I’m from almost no one under 25 gets a credit card, because most non-online/prepaid/crypto credit cards have an age or income limit.
Everyone over the age of 12 has a debit card here. I think it promotes healthy spending knowing you have a set limit and immediately see the amount of money change. Overdrafts are also not enabled by default and require an extra package.
Venmo/Cashapp etc are also uncommon here.
mojo@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Credit cards have much better fraud protection then debit
Annually2747@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The fraud prevention page for my mastercard debit card is the same page as the credit card page.
However, what I really recommend is you can get travel cards that you load with minimal money and are entirely disposable. You don’t need to only use them overseas. I have used them for online payments and in person payments and they’re disposable. That is I can get two more unique cards with unique numbers at any time. Minimising my personal risk since they can’t be used as ID and I limit the money on the card to just what’s needed. If it’s stolen skimmed or tried to be used fraudulently I might at most lose 50 dollars but I also probably know who within a margin of error skimmed it since I rotate them with new cards every so often.
I’m also in a place where losing 50 Australian dollars won’t financially bankrupt me if it was stolen. Because I’m pretty sure there is lots less fraud protection on those travel cards.
Anyway there’s alternatives for those who can’t or morally object to credit cards. Like me. Mine is I’m bad with money, I morally don’t trust myself since I went into 10k debt at 18.
Aux@lemmy.world 1 year ago
That’s kind of irrelevant when you have modern tech like mobile payments to safeguard you. But yeah, if you’re still using magnetic stripes, you’re kinda fucked.
dingus@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I got a credit card as a teen and have always just treated it like cash. Zero issues doing that and it helped build up my credit score by giving me such a long credit history with good payments.
hulemy@ani.social 1 year ago
As an European credit scores sound so weird to me 😮
creditCrazy@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Probably the best advice I’ve gotten was “it may be a loan and someone else’s money but you best treat it as your own money because it will eventually be your money and you have to pay for everything”
dangblingus@lemmy.world 1 year ago
What does “treated it like cash” mean?
Mr_Blott@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Reasons to get a credit card in 2019 -
To hire a car
Reasons to get a credit card in 2023 -
?
Totally alien concept to me
dangblingus@lemmy.world 1 year ago
You put normal monthly expenses on the credit card, then you immediately pay it off. Do this for a while and build your credit score. Use your higher credit score to get approved for loans/mortgages/bigger credit.
All credit is is a way to buy something expensive that you can’t afford right now. Figure out what you want to buy, then build the necessary credit to be approved for the big purchase.
Stumblinbear@pawb.social 1 year ago
Not having a credit card is giving up free money in cash back and rewards
iFarmGolems@lemmy.world 1 year ago
When you pay with credit card it’s bank’s money. When paying with debit it’s yours.
I pay everything on the internet with credit card. It’s safer.
Fogle@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
I use mine for cash back. I’ve been watching this finance channel on YouTube and the amount of Americans with thousands and thousands of credit card debt at sometimes over 30% interest is fucking insane.
Aux@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Juicy cashbacks with AmEx.
mayonaise_met@feddit.nl 1 year ago
Maertro crowd isn’t so lucky. And rental companies don’t advertise this.
Zozano@aussie.zone 1 year ago
I’m in my thirties and I’ve never owned a credit card. Fuck paying interest.
People always told me I need to get one so I can have a good credit rating. For what? So I can pay more interest for a mortgage on a house I’ll never buy?
Stupid.
Open a savings account and have someone else pay YOU interest.
PP_BOY_@lemmy.world 1 year ago
You only need to pay interest if you don’t make your monthly payments. I put gas and some groceries on my card and zero it out every month. By the time I graduated from university I had a credit score of about 775.
For what? So I can pay more interest for a mortgage on a house I’ll never buy?
This is a terrible way to look at credit. You’ll definitely be paying more interest with no credit score if you can even get a loan (you won’t). You’re pretty much guaranteeing your failure like this.
Open a savings account and have someone else pay YOU interest.
Yeah lmao that 0.3% really pays out big, huh? Most credit cards offer anywhere between 1-10% cash back.
Zozano@aussie.zone 1 year ago
FYI my savings account earns 5.25% p.a.
Also, I know that the money I’m investing is being used ethically, which helps me sleep a bit better
Candybar121@lemmy.world 1 year ago
you only pay interest if you miss your payments deadline. I get cash 2% back on every single purchase. Meanwhile my savings account I opened gave me a whopping $5 in the past month.
nickiam2@aussie.zone 1 year ago
You do know where that cash back is coming from, right? Everything you buy has credit card fees baked into the price. The business pays anywhere from 1-5% on every transaction to accept your payment, and a small percent of that is returned to you as “cash back” rewards. Its why I’ve switched back to using cash and any coins I get as change go into a jar. That earns much more than %10 “cash back”, and some shops even make the customers pay the CC fee here in aus so I get a small “discount” too.
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 1 year ago
People always told me I need to get one so I can have a good credit rating. For what? So I can pay more interest for a mortgage on a house I’ll never buy?
Credit gives you options. Furnace goes out way sooner than anticipated and you only have $5k in the bank? Take out a loan for the remaining $3-5k to get it done now. Unexpected car repair and you only have $500 after rent in the bank? Whip out the credit card and put the other $500-1000 on there and throw extra money at it until it’s paid off. Yes you’ll pay some interest, but you’ll have a working car, or a working furnace, or whatever other calamity you find yourself facing.
But the biggest thing credit does it lets you buy property much much sooner in life. Property has a wierd habit of gaining value much faster than it should, the payment stays the same for the entire term of the loan, plus with a mortgage every payment buys you slightly more ownership of the property unlike a rent payment which is just money leaving your bank account every month for nothing other than the privilege of the roof over your head for the following month.
For a real world example, I bought my house a couple of years ago for ~120k. I live in a small town so I figured it wouldn’t gain anything other than holding it’s value through inflation. My monthly payment is ~800ish and similar places were renting for ~1k/month. Well thanks to the hyperinflation the last couple of years, my house is now worth closer to 180k and rents are up to $1200-1500/mo for a similar place to the one I own, but I still pay $800/mo for my house. That’s what credit gets you in the long term. It gets you stability and options for when the going gets tough
Zozano@aussie.zone 1 year ago
Most of what I said comes with the implication that instead of paying interest, you’re putting that money into a savings account, instead of racing to 0.
You don’t need a get-out-of-jail-free-card(with-interest) when you can just pay to leave like the gigachad saver you are.
I will never own a house, it’s not an option for me - it never will be.
dan1101@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I kinda doubt the thieves are very picky.
DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 1 year ago
350 is basically "don’t loan this dork money under any circumstance.’
RadButNotAChad@lemmy.world 1 year ago
You have to work to get a 350. I’ve been selling cars a long time and seen only a couple go that low. We always say on scores like that we couldn’t get financed on a dollar with 4 quarters down.
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 1 year ago
My wife literally defaulted on 2 or 3 credit cards last year (she got a head injury at work and literally couldn’t remember whether or not she’d paid them) and while her score dipped into the 400s it’s back up to the low 600s thanks to regular payments on our mortgage and car loan.
My brother in law apperently managed to drop into the 300s though. He has relatively high income from his factory job, his mother helped him buy a house and he spends all of his money so every payment is late or missed and he’s constantly on the brink of defaulting purely because he doesn’t know how to manage his money
jarfil@lemmy.world 1 year ago
So like, hypothetically, how much would one have to steal to get a 350… or being a Loch Ness Monster would be enough?
paddirn@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Scorched earth credit score strategy
Vej@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I truly feel credit cards are a tax on the poor.
Sure you can try to keep up on payments, one day you may find out you cannot.
dangblingus@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Don’t live outside your means. Eventually, one has to be accountable over their own finances.
frickineh@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yeah steal my identity. Enjoy the student loan debt, no takebacks!
newIdentity@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
They will increase your debt though
frickineh@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I just said no takebacks. If someone steals my identity, they have to keep it and whatever additional debt they rack up.
snooggums@kbin.social 1 year ago
The credit scores aren't even government scores, just private companies that decided to collect everyone's information and the government won't do anything about it 'because of the economy'.
winkerjadams@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
Well the companies control the government so…
HardNut@lemmy.world 1 year ago
These are not privately owned companies, they are public corporations.
Take American express for example: “American Express Co is a public company headquartered in New York…” A public company, not a private one.
You would think if something was owned by a private individual or a private organization, we could point to one person or entity that owns and controls it. But, if you look at the ownership of any major American credit card corporation, you will see that the ownership is held by a collective of entities. You might say that ownership is far more held in common than privately:
American Express Company: “Largest shareholders include Berkshire Hathaway Inc, Vanguard Group Inc, BlackRock Inc., State Street Corp, Wellington Management Group Llp, Jpmorgan Chase & Co, VTSMX - Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund Investor Shares, VFINX - Vanguard 500 Index Fund Investor Shares, Morgan Stanley, and Bank Of America Corp…”
Bank of America: “Bank Of America Corp’s top holdings are Microsoft Corporation (US:MSFT) , Invesco Capital Management LLC - Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1 (US:QQQ) , Apple Inc (US:AAPL) , SSgA Active Trust - SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (US:SPY) , and SSgA Active Trust - SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (US:SPY)…”
Capital One: “Capital One Financial Corps top holdings are BlackRock Institutional Trust Company N.A. - iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF (US:USMV) , Goldman Sachs ETF Trust - Goldman Sachs ActiveBeta International Equity ETF (US:GSIE) , BlackRock Institutional Trust Company N.A. - iShares MSCI USA Quality Factor ETF (US:QUAL) , Vanguard Group, Inc. - Vanguard Tax-Exempt Bond ETF (US:VTEB) , and BlackRock Institutional Trust Company N.A.”
I think its safe to say the natural oppoisite of private ownership is public ownership. So, if ownership and control is held in common, then you can’t call it private ownership. You may notice that Blackrock is a partial and large shareholder to these companies. Well, Blackrock can’t be privately owned either, considering it has no private owner, only shareholders, and all BLK shares have voting rights, meaning that shareholders of BlackRock have a say in the company’s affairs in line with the proportion of ownership they hold in the firm.
snooggums@kbin.social 1 year ago
I think it was clear that I meant they were not part of the government.
MisterFrog@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I think you’re overlooking that they are publicly traded companies.
The opposite of private ownership is not publicly traded companies, it’s state owned companies, or government organisations.
It’s a bit of a stretch to say that because they’re publicly traded that means things are a-ok with them assigning scores to people. The most vulnerable of which never would even own stock in any of those companies, and even if they did, not enough to ever be able to influence their practices.
Capitalism friend, profits first, everything else second.
In conclusion, these companies need to be regulated since they basically control people’s destinies through a non-democratically controlled system.