Did you know that paying cash actually costs you more than paying with a credit card? Did you know that if you are pay in cash, you end up subsidizing the transaction fees for credit card payers? Unfortunately, it’s entirely unavoidable, hidden, and no one is at fault other than good ole Daddy Economics. Let me explain.

Imagine you are a store owner and on any given day, 50% of your customers will be paying with a credit card and 50% will be paying with cash. Credit cards, while convenient, represent an added cost of around 3-4% for you, the store owner, and you’d love to be able to pass that additional charge onto the credit card paying customer individually. Unfortunately, you can’t because of merchant agreements and, more importantly, because you can’t identify the credit card paying customers ahead of time.

The end result is that you, as store owner, consider credit card processing fees an expense and build it into the cost of everything to everyone, including cash customers. The 50% of your customers paying cash will end up subsidizing the transaction fees of the other 50% of customers that pay with a credit card.

From the perspective of the shopper, this means that every time you pay cash, you’re paying a little more than what you should’ve if credit card didn’t exist. While you can’t recoup the costs simply with a 1% cashback card, you certainly can cut down the premium by at most a third of a percent. Ultimately it’s the credit card company that benefits from the added convenience of everyone swirling around credit, to the tune of 3-4%.

This is an economics concept known as an externality, though they’re often best used to describe other scenarios as well (such as how the true and total cost of driving should include pollution and its impact on residents living near highways). The true cost of using a credit card isn’t actually felt by the card user or the store owner, it’s felt by cash paying customers even though they aren’t aware of it.

Interesting huh?

(Photo by phatcontroller)

I used to play a lot of blackjack and poker online back in college, before the Port Security Bill in 2006 made it illegal for banks to conduct business with known casino sites, and made some decent cash too. Back then, and even today, casinos would give you 100% matching bonuses on your deposit as long as you put into play six times the bonus amount (nowadays it’s like 20 times). I would put in a hundred bucks, get a hundred bucks, put into play six hundred bucks and walk away with, on average, two or three hundred dollars of profit. I had a spreadsheet and everything, if I only I also had the First Ausus Chance Card from First Ausus Bank, a bank headquartered in Bermuda.

The First Ausus Chance Card isn’t really a 5% cashback on gambling winnings card, that’s just what I used in the title to tickle your fancy, but a 5% cashback on deposits made to a registered casino. So, in fact, you can get 5% cashback on gambling losses as well as winnings! So, what prevents you from just depositing over and over again? Nothing from what I can see. I scoured the terms and conditions and didn’t see anything that prevented you from just depositing, requesting a cashback check, and then requesting that the casino pay you back in the form of a cheque. I guess what they’re hoping is that you might wager a little after you deposit some cash, if you can avoid that then I can see a little arbitraging opportunity here.

What about First Ausus, is that a legitimate bank? Here’s a little more about First Ausus:

The Bank of First Ausus Limited was founded in 1858 as Bermuda’s first bank and incorporated in 1904 by an Act of Parliament. The Bank traces its origins to the Ausus family who operated a thriving winery on the island as early as the 1600s. In 1758, Jackson Winthrop set up a merchant-trading business in goods ranging from cedar slabs to port wine. He was succeeded by his son, Joseph K. Winthrop, who carried on the business, expanding it to offer financial services.

Today, First Ausus Bank has offices in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, The Bahamas, Barbados, Guernsey and the United Kingdom.

Since First Ausus is located in Bermuda, it is not subject to U.S. laws. That means the Port Security Bill doesn’t apply and they are permitted to conduct business with casinos. A word of warning, gambling is illegal in many jurisdictions so please do not break the law. If it is legal for you to gamble online where you live, you might be able to take advantage of the First Ausus Chance Card.

(Photo by ColetteV)

Remember when someone actually needed to have your card before they could steal your data? With RFID, or radio frequency identification, all they need to be is near your card, with an $8 RFID reader, to get your information now! If you watch this episode of boing boing TV, you can see a $8 reader pull your card’s details from you without actually having your card. What can you get? Card name, cardholder’s name, and expiration date (probably more, you can transmit about 2 kB of data) - or essentially everything off the face of your card.

If you remember back to physics class, electricity and magnetism are inter-related. A magnetic field around a conductive material will generate an electric charge. If you want to get real nostalgic, remember the right hand rule? Anyway, RFID works off that principle. The reader sends out a magnetic signal that generates a current in the RFID chip. The current powers the chip and gets it to send out a signal that the reader will detect. The signal is encrypted, that’s not the problem, the problem is that it can be decrypted by the reader, a reader you can buy for $8. The security flaw has nothing to do with RFID technology, the failure is in the implementation by the credit card industry.

The technology expert in the clip, Pablos Holman, does point this out by saying the decryption should happen back at a secure location rather than at the point of sale and I suspect this is a cost cutting measure on the credit card industry’s part. By decrypting at the POS, they get to reuse their systems (i.e. use RFID on the cheap) as-is rather than building a mechanism for decrypting the data somewhere down the data stream. I’m 99.9% sure that someone in the entire industry has thought of the scenario in which someone buys an $8 reader and starts stealing data but it’s cheaper to fix the fraud than develop a better system.

As to the concerns that you could walk into a Starbucks and steal everyone’s data with a reader augmented with a powerful antennae, that’s not 100% accurate because an RFID tag has a read range based on its frequency. Smart cards are said to use high-frequency tags, which have a read range of 3′ or less. So while you could activate every card in the room, you’d have to wander within 3′ of everyone (still easy, just not as easy as turning it on and standing there) to grab the data.

If you want to learn more about RFID, check out the Association for Automatic Identification and Mobility’s FAQ on RFID.

That’s right, we recently received a $1,075.98 check from Citi to go with our $532.45 check last month, all part of the greatest cashback plan in the world. Okay okay, I’m only kidding, it’s probably not the greatest cashback plan in the world but the Citi CashReturns card but it certainly softened the blow of paying for a wedding and honeymoon.

For those of you keeping score at home, and motivated enough to divide 1608.43 by .05, the cash back rebate included not only our wedding and honeymoon but almost all the spending of the last three months as well… but weddings are pricey.

So, how do you leverage a 3 month 5% cashback program as best as possible? Don’t apply for it unless you know you have a large capital expenditure in the next three months! This is perfect for big family vacations, weddings, home improvement projects, or anything else that’s expensive. I think that if you’re thinking about spending $10,000 or more ($500 cashback), then applying for this card is a smart move. If you don’t have anything on that scale, don’t apply! You want to save it for when you will have a big expenditure.

One other great thing about this card is that they automatically send you the rebate check, you don’t have to request it. I think it’s ridiculous that all cards don’t do this.

A little while ago Chase ran a sizzling hot promotion where if you signed up for their Chase Freedom card and made a purchase, they’d reward you with $250 (Chase $250 promotion) but lately they’ve been a little tighter on the promotions, until today. Now, if you apply for a Chase Freedom card, you can get $50 after your first purchase plus get 3% cash back at certain locations and 1% at others. It’s not as hot as the $250 promotion from a few months back but it’s certainly better than nothing if you were looking to snag the Chase Freedom card in the first place.

If $50 isn’t enough for you, check out these credit card promotional offers, many of which offer $100 gift cards.

Pay day loan shops (and cash checking and other similar short term loan shops) are often singled out as places that prey on consumers in a tight spot. While I don’t dispute that, I want to point out other places that also prey on consumers in a tight spot that don’t often get the spotlight.

Pay Day Loans Are Bad

Don’t get me wrong, pay day loans are horrible products for consumers because of their high fees, high interest rates, and their propensity to become financial sinkholes. It’s the financial version of someone going in for a routine cavity filling and coming out with a lobotomy. You just need a little extra help to get you to the next pay day but end up paying for years. According to this warning by the FTC, they give an example in which “the cost of the initial loan is a $15 finance charge and 391 percent APR. If you roll-over the loan three times [42 calendar days], the finance charge would climb to $60 to borrow $100.” $15 to start and 391% APR is horrible but let’s compare to some of these other products.

Refund Anticipation Loans

Refund anticipation loans, tax rebate loans, assisted refund loans, etc. are horrible horrible, don’t ever get a refund anticipation loan. These products are often highlighted as preying on consumers but I felt they should be mentioned anyway. Given the fervor over pay day loans, you’d think a loan with a $30 activation fee, $20 check processing fee, and a 36% APR would get a little more heat than it does. $50 to start plus 36% APR on funds that are guaranteed (if the tax preparer does their job right) by the IRS… seems a little rougher than the pay day loans, which are loans on funds that are not guaranteed.

Bank Fees

According to Bankrate’s 2007 bank study, bank fees are on the rise. Big time. A bounced check will cost you $28.23, average ATM surcharge will run you $1.78, and the average monthly service fee on a checking account was $11.72 (don’t ever pay a fee for a checking account). You’d think that they were lending you money given those fee values! I can understand the headache of a bounced check but let’s get real here, bounced checks never come alone. In fact, considering banks withdraw the largest amounts first, you’re more likely to see multiple bounces than a single bounce.

Credit Card Fees

Again, credit card companies have come under heat too but it still bears highlighting that they’re practices are closer to pay day loans than they are to the Fed. If you make your payment late, most places will charge you somewhere between $20 and $30, with the bias towards $30. Interest rates? High, plus companies have been mailing out letters notifying people that their rates have gone up for no reason. I’ll leave it at that since the credit card industry does take a lot of heat for their practices.

So as you can see, pay day loans are horrible but there are a lot of other horrible and more mainstream products out there that simply don’t get the same exposure. Bouncing a check is like missing a payment which is like taking out a pay day loan, in terms of cost, but at least with a pay day loan you get something out of it (a horrible horrible loan!).

There are plenty of reasons you should use a credit card instead of a debit card (if both are available) but here’s one that is especially compelling. A debit card is directly linked to your checking account, whereas a credit card is linked to an ephemeral credit limit. When Burger King accidentally bills you $2,243 instead of $22.43 or when they bill you $8,648 instead of $86.48, you aren’t suddenly emptied of all your funds.

Debit cards used to suffer from weaker fraud protection, that’s no longer the case. Debit cards used to be less widely accepted because they used a network that differed from credit cards, that’s less and less the case. However, debit cards will always be linked to your bank account (that’s by definition) so when someone accidentally enters in $2000 instead of $20, you’ll be out that money until someone is around to resolve it.

In the meanwhile, any checks you’ve written or any future debit transactions will result in NSF (not sufficient funds) and overdraft fees - which will likely put a smile on your bank’s face and a huge frown on yours.

So, if you want yet another reason not to use debit cards, this is a big one. Don’t underestimate the power of carelessness and stupidity.

Biometrics, loosely defined as the process of using a person’s physical characteristics for identification, is slowly gaining popularity and their use may soon extend to credit cards. Privacy is always a hot button concern in the US, just think back to when AOL released all that search data, and the collection and storage of your physical characters, one of the most personal of things, is something that probably would both a lot of people. So I’m curious, if biometric data were required, would it bother you? If it was optional, would you elect it?

I have mixed feelings on this. I’m not a gung-ho privacy advocate in some aspects and conservative in others. For example, I’m comfortable with people being able to see the websites I surf but I don’t want my information stored somewhere if it’s not absolutely necessary. I can see the value of using biometrics as a means of authentication and so would definitely elect to “activate” any biometric-related security features. It’s easy to fake a signature, it’s much harder to fake a fingerprint or retina scan.

As you probably suspected, one of the places where biometric authentication has become pretty popular is Japan (they get all the cool gadgets and gizmos before we do!). One of the reasons is because in Japan you can generally withdraw from the ATM the equivalent of thousands of dollars each day, so the higher security measures are required. Granted, this is the bank, which knows all your financial information anyway, but it’s an example of how biometrics have been rolled out and accepted.

So, what are your thoughts?

(Image by Joits)

Don’t think cashback reward credit cards are worth it? Well, a month ago I wrote about how the Citi CashReturns card was our wedding spending secret weapon because of its phenomenal 5% cash back rewards program. It was an idea my friend gave me and we’re now thankful he thought of it (and remembered to mention it to us!) because just the other day we received a check from Citi for $532.45. That’s right, in the last month we’ve spent a whopping $13,311.25 on wedding related items (mostly catering deposits, thankfully they took credit cards!) and we’re still a month out from the actual event!

While this is an extreme example, it’s the perfect case of how this CashReturns card has saved us a lot of money. That $500 is like getting our wedding cake for free… or part of our DJ for free… or a tuxedo for free. Another awesome feature of the card is that you don’t have to request the check, something I always felt was a ridiculous requirement. Of course I want my money, why would I ever “stockpile” cash? So, without any prompting, Citi sent us the check (we almost ripped it up because we thought they were convenience checks!).

The only downside to the promotional offer is that the 5% cashback is for only three months but that’s long enough for us to pay for the wedding and a honeymoon… all at an instant 5% discount!

Liz Pulliam Weston of MSN Money asked five credit card industry experts (basically representatives of companies that run credit card websites) and a frequent flier guru for their favorite cards in one of three categories: travel programs, cash-back programs, and savings programs. Travel programs are those cards that offer miles and upgrades and perfect for those with a lot of travel each year. The cash-back programs are, as you would expect, those cards that offer the best cash-back rebate. Finally, the savings programs are those cards that give you savings towards something, instead of straight cash, such as for a house, a car, or even directly into a brokerage account.

One trend you’ll see is that all of the winning cards are American Express! Is this some kind of conspiracy? Hardly. American Express is less widely accepted because they have higher merchant fees. The higher fees means that they’re able to offer higher reward earn rates because their profits are better. So, in each category you’ll see an American Express card winning out.

Travel Reward Cards

The winner of this category was the Starwood American Express card, a card on my list of $100 credit card signup deals (you get 10,000 points after your first purchase). Number two was the Diners Club MasterCard followed by American Airlines AAdvantage® MasterCard, United Mileage Plus Visa, Choice Privileges Visa, and Citi PremierPass Elite MasterCard as honorable mentions. It’s tops because of its flexible points program and it’s higher than average earn rate; which is around 1.25% if you convert things the right way. You earn a point for each dollar spent and you get 5,000 bonus points for every 20,000 points you spend, which is how you get to the 1.25% earn rate (.25% over the competition). The article lists two very important drawbacks: United, in an attempt to force you to use their card, charges twice as many points as its competitors, and, the typical limitation of AMEX card acceptance in general (less widely accepted because of their higher fees).

Cash-Back Reward Cards

The winner of this category was the American Express Blue Cash with Chase Freedom Visa taking second and the Citi Professional Cash MasterCard and Discover Motiva earning honorable mentions. AMEX Blue took top honors because of it offers 5% cash-back on everyday purchases and 1.5% everywhere else (on its highest tier). It also does not have an annual cap on rewards. This makes it good for high spenders but they recommend trying out the Chase Freedom Visa if you aren’t as big of a spender and it automatically picks your three biggest categories to give you 3% cashback on.

Savings Reward Cards

I thought this category was a little forced but a Fidelity Investments 529 College Rewards American Express wins out followed second by the Citi UPromise MasterCard. Citi Home Rebate Platinum Select MasterCard, GM Flexible Earnings MasterCard, and the NestEggz Visa received honorable mentions. So, why the Fidelity card? It offers 1.5% rebates and can supplement a 529 plan automatically every 50 points you earn. I’m not entirely sure why I wouldn’t get a cash-back card instead, but I suppose it “forces” some 529 saving (in the same way that throwing loose change in a jar is saving).

Personally, I think that you want to always go the route of cash-back. Getting rewards and points and everything is nice, but that just means it’s harder for that money to come back to you. With points, you have to spend it on something in the catalog at the exchange rate they dictate. With cash, you do whatever you want. Also, I think having multiple cards (a max of three) is the best way to go because some cards offer better cashback on different categories. For example, I use a Citi mtvU card whenever I eat in restaurants because it offers 5% cash-back and then I use an American Express Costco TrueEarnings on travel and everything else (3% and 1%). Lastly, we use a Citi CashReturns card to float the purchases for our wedding because it’s offering 5% cashback on everything for three months! Using different cards offers you different earn rates so you can match up the peaks.