By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
HappySqurriel on 16 June 2009
Edit Thread
ManusJustus said:
HappySqurriel said:
ManusJustus said:
De85 said:

The amount of naivete in this post is baffling. First off, banks and credit cards do not and can not prey on anyone without that person first royally screwing the pooch. It's not the fault of the credit card company that you made more charges than you can afford to pay for, and must now pay the high interest rates that you knew you would have to pay if you didn't keep your balance current.

Secondly, it would be great if the sole purpose of government agencies were to protect the consumers, but sadly that's not how it works out in real life. One word: bureaucracy.

Akuma summed things up nicely. To put it simply, many low-skilled workers cant effectively read through a 20 page contract and completely understand all the legal and financial jargon. Even if they realize that they are being wronged, lawyers arent a cheap and quick alternative.

"Can't read through" or "Don't read through"?

If they don't have the ability to read the contract wouldn't it make sense to provide better education, training and or services to help people understand the contract? If they are simply too lazy to do the work to protect themself and read a contract why is it anyone's problem but their own?

So you're saying that these people are too lazy to get training or a degree in law and finance so if they get screwed its their own fault?

Your remedy to people not having enough legal and financial knowledge is for the government to step in and educate them, but it makes a lot more sense just to have the government regulate bad business practices.

I'm an educated person, and I have a background in business and economics (which was required for my civil engineering degree), but before I enter into a contract that I'm not sure about I have a lawyer look at it. Its definately worth $500+ dollars to make sure I'm safe, but not everybody is able to shell out that kind of money on every contract they dont fully understand.

My grandfather who has a grade 4 education fully understands the terms of the financial contracts he signed, so I think that any claim about needing a law degree or finance degree to understand the contracts is simply dramatic.

With that said, I wasn't (necessarily) suggesting that the education should be provided by the government because there are already several organizations (at least in Canada) which offer low cost or free basic financial and legal advice to people. On top of that, some of the biggest holes in the secondary education system is the lack of education provided about managing personal finance and the lack of a basic education in the legal system ...

We don't accept it as an excuse when someone says that they didn't read or understand their sexual harrassment policy at work, so why should we accept it as an excuse when someone says that they didn't read or understand a financial contract they entered into?

 

Beyond that, a question I have is why are these credit card contracts "Bad business practices"?

Over several decades of creating these contracts the wording has been carefully created and refined (after decades of lawsuits) to ensure that the company can offer credit to a vast array of clients, each with very different credit ratings, and produce a reasonable profit without taking on too high of a risk.

Forcing them to change the contract for political reasons could result in the company going out of business due to too high of risk exposure with too low of a return, or (more likely) everyone paying higher interest rates because of increased risk the company is undertaking.