Just Give Access To The Money?

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So I stopped at a make-up counter at a department store.  When I pulled out my debit card to pay for my purchase, the sales clerk began telling me about the great debit card program that the store offered.

With delight, the sales clerk informs me that the department store now had their own debit card and it was real simple to begin.  Just simply give the cashier a voided check and then when the debit card is used, the money will be deducted from my account just like using my own debit card.  The only thing is that I’ll be getting EXTRAORDINARY specials and discounts where in a short period of time some purchases will be pretty much free.

I told her it sounded nice, but I was not interested in letting a department store have authorized access to my checking account through another debit card operated by another bank. 

We volleyed back and forth.

“It’s a program that’s like no other program.”

“It’s sounds like a nice program but I’m not giving authorization for unlimited access to my bank account.”

“They only go into your account when you use the debit card and you’ll get this and that and that and this.”

“I understand, but I’m not here often enough to take advantage of the program.”

“But even in one transaction, even today, you can get this, this, this, and that.”

“Thank you.  I’m not interested.”

“But everybody is doing it.”

Get behind me, Satan.  I almost went there.  Had to catch myself.  I moved the conversation to the direction of ‘hurry up and ring me out so I can get out of here and away from you’.

So she’s ringing, but she’s still talking. “I’m giving you a brochure so you can learn more about it.”  She looked at me in bewilderment and said, “Everybody is taking advantage of this.”

I don’t give a flying flip.  If I got to hand over my checking account information for someone else’s debit card, one more thing tied to my money and to manage in case it gets lost just to get a discount, then I don’t need to be in the store.  If the store can give those great discounts, then why not just do it on a keyring card like all of the other stores?   Why does it have to be tied to somebody’s bank account?  That just didn’t make sense to me as an eyes-wide-open-and-ain’t-studden-the-discount-hype consumer.  Those huge discounts and free future transactions weren’t erasing the fact that the store would be using the authorization and access to my account information for their gain in some kind of undisclosed way while opening up another window for a hacker or identity theft no matter what security promises they gave.

I took the brochure so I could remember to blog about it.

N

 “Big Girl, Little Girl – Everything I Can Think Of Right Now To Tell You About Life, Money, Credit, Boys, Men, and Sex”, has a chapter about giving control or access to bank accounts and the jeopardies that go along with it that includes financial ruin and the tarnishing of financial and credit records.  For more information, visit:  www.ladyintelligence.com