The Great Credit Card Debate
And this round is in the books! Madison and I debated all weekend the pros and cons for and against credit cards, and today is the big wrap-up, the play-by-play game summary if you will. I didn’t change Madison’s mind, and she sure didn’t change mine LOL but we had great good fun and kept a controversial subject as a civil debate, which is not always easy. These little pieces of plastic can bring out some very strong feelings, as both of us found out on the social bookmarking sites!
I fired the first shot a day early with Dirty Credit Card Company Tricks, so Madison responded that day with just one “good” reason she loves her credit cards … and for the record she didn’t “bust” me trying to “slip” in an extra post: I posted the link on a message board we both frequent.
On the official start day of the debate, she posted her 25 Reasons to Love Credit Cards early in the morning to give me time to drink enough coffee to respond. Some are serious, and some are silly (#8 is actually both) but none of them are enough to convince me and it sparked a side debate about debit card protection with Eden on her HIS blog. I responded with Ways Credit Card Companies Separate You from YOUR Money and even the pro-credit card people have to agree…that list is pretty evil.
Saturday Madison posted early again (how early does she get up?? I am so not a morning person!) with her counterpoints to the dirty little games credit card companies play, and I had to ask the question: Can You REALLY Win with Credit Cards? because I honestly don’t believe it’s possible over the long run.
Yesterday, Madison pleaded Don’t Hate the Credit Card, to which I left a comment on her blog that I have been saying here all along: I have nothing against the actual cards themselves … but I DO hate the credit card companies! I didn’t post a reply yesterday, because I have had something very local that affects my finances in a huge way come to my attention (that is a separate post, and I still need to pry information from local governing bodies about it). Trust me, it has nothing to do with any inability to rant about credit card companies LOL I could do that for a solid month if I still had any making me mad…
Which brings me to Lynnae from BeingFrugal.net: during the Great Credit Card Debate she has been posting about her run-in with the Evil Citibank, and in fact it was her post that inspired me to start a day early. Here’s her saga:
- It all started with a mistake at Citibank which convinced Lynnae that Credit Card Companies want to Eat You Alive, something I’ve been trying to convince her of for a while;
- The pain and hassle continued when that mistake wasn’t fixed as promised by TWO “service” reps, and Lynnae spent the weekend still mad at Citibank (easy to do if you ask me!)
- and for Lynnae’s grand finale … (drumroll please) … SHE FINALLY CUT UP ALL HER CREDIT CARDS!!! She dedicated this post to myself
and GLBLGuy since we have tried for months to get her to do this.
What a great way to cap off the Great Credit Card Debate (in MY opinion), but it begs the question: If we EVER convince Madison to shred her credit cards…is there a shredder strong enough to handle all 89 of her credit cards?
Finally, the debate got some mention in this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance hosted by Mrs. Micah, where she spotlighted one of my posts, one of Madison’s post, and of course Lynnae’s rant about Citibank.
Keep the comments coming, folks, and I hear there are a few more bloggers preparing posts to chime in on the debate :)