credit card

On Fraud and Credit Cards

Via The Consumerist:

EnterĀ Merchantfraud, a group of well-intentioned but foolish outlaws who advocate having customers ask them for stickers identifying the companies as violators, then sticking them on offenders’ storefronts.

I agree with the author of this article to an extent. Calling business establishments robbers and thieves is a bit over the top, but at the same time I am a little bit miffed that stores can get away with this. I remember coming across this problem in a bar a few years back. I had just ordered a drink and was about to pay with my card when the bartender told me that I would have to spend at least $20 before she could ring it up. Since I had already consumed about half of the drink already, there really wasn’t any way I could go out and seek out an ATM somewhere, of which there wasn’t one to be found (I know because I looked later that night and it was blocks away). So, naturally I drank $20 worth of booze and got way more blitzed than I planed. This would have been a different story if this were the Hopleaf, but I digress.

Point being, it kind of blows to find that stores can get away with this, especially if it’s “prohibited” by the credit card companies themselves. But I don’t think I care enough to go around defacing store-fronts with stickers.