A Case for Responsible Credit Card Use

December 2, 2007

As I’ve described before, I’m not a huge fan of credit cards and I’ve gotten into pretty big trouble when I used it like monopoly money in my stupid days. However, just this week, I’ve run into a situation where I wish I (actually my wife in this case) had used a credit card.

My wife and I are doing most of our Christmas shopping online this year, so in keeping with our general policy of paying for things in cash or with a debit card, she bought something for me at Best Buy’s website with our debit card. I still don’t know what it is, and I probably never will.

After buying it from the website and getting a confirmation email, my wife elected to pick it up at the local store the following Monday, which was an option at checkout. It was all good until…

Day1, Day2. It took Best Buy 2 days to send an email informing us that the item was not available to be picked up, and gave us the option to cancel the order.

This is the part that bugs me about debit cards –> they have a pending charge on my account since the moment my wife hit submit on the Best Buy’s website. This, of course makes the money unavailable.

Day 3. Of course, by the time we called to see if we couple pick it up at another store in the area, their customer service department was closed for the day.

I’m still ok with this being the 3rd day with the pending charge, because we had budgeted for Christmas presents and were prepared to commit to the purchase and be without the money for good.

Day 4. My wife finally connects with BB customer service and figures out that she can’t get the item in any local store and the shipping time would be too long, so she cancels the order. BB informs her that they will refund the money to our debit card.

However, BB informed her that it may take up to 8 days to clear our account.

Day 5. Here I sit, still with a pending charge on my account, tying up my hard earned cash, and now I won’t have access to it for up to 8 more days?

It’s a good thing it was only around $85. What if my wife had gotten me a nice $1200 laptop? or a $2000 LCD tv? Best Buy would have managed to withhold that money for a total of 12 days, without me being able to do anything about it.

While the Best Buy’s refund time seems a little excessive, the bigger problem is that it ties up my real money. If she had used a credit card, it’d be no big deal, because I can live with a portion of my credit line being withheld for up to 2 weeks.

I’m now rethinking my general debit-card policy for everyday and online use. I think from now on, it will be credit cards for online purchases and “major” (maybe over $100?) purchases at local stores, or any situation where I don’t want to tie up my “real money” for something that my not work out.

UPDATE: Day6. The refund from Best Buy finally cleared my checking account.