@longtimelurker wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@kdm31091 wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
People own cards?
Agree I always hated the term. You own the debt. Nothing else. Cards are not assets or property.
If we're being technical, you own the card but the bank owns the line of credit it represents.
Not sure. I have had cards (maybe UK ones but I thought here too) that actually state something like "This card remains the property of the issuer and must be surrendered on demand" (OK, that sounds UK!)
You are right about that.
When I used to work retail, occasionally the POS system would prompt us to call a card in for manual authorization. Usually it was just a glitch, and it would still be approved, but once-in-a-blue-moon we would be instructed to retain the card (and told to cut it in half and mail it to a designated address). In practice we didn't actually do so, we would hand it back to the customer and tell them it was declined, but the physical plastic card clearly is the property of the issuer.
Some might say it was wrong of us to not keep the card like the call center instructed, but we decided that our safety was more important than being a "temporary agent" for a credit card company, and further we didn't want to be any part of the fiasco in the event of an error.
Also, for what it's worth, during this time (the 90s) the card issuers didn't reserve having a merchant keep a card just for theft/fraud cases. One of my very first cards was a joint MC with my grandfather, who back then had many, many cards. The regional bank who issued it decided to take AA by closing the account, and I found out when I tried to use the card at my own store... yep, POS instructed the cashier to call. I simply used another of my cards, but then I went and called for the authorization myself, as an employee, to see what action would be taken. The call center told me to "retain the card from the customer", and then asked if I was familiar with the destroy/mailing process. That was a valuable lesson to me to *always* carry a back-up, even if you believe the card has plenty of CL and the bill was paid.
For me, when I say I 'own' or 'have' a credit card, it's the same as when I refer to "my desk" or "my phone" at work... it's clearly not -my- desk, but it's the one I use. I don't feel the need to specify "my employer's phone that I use" each time I reference it - it's easier to just say, 'my phone'. When it comes to credit cards, clearly the issuer's "own" the cards, but they give them to us to use (similar to a boss providing the work desk) so like most people I'm in the habit of referring to it as "mine" while it's assigned to me. Most reasonable people will know that when I refer to "my chair" at work, it's likely the one provided for me to use, and when I refer to "my credit card" I'm talking about the one in my pocket associated with an account that I very much do "own", for better or worse... LOL.
