@newtboy -- I used a credit card (Discover) almost exactly as you described while I was going to college. Get a balance to pay for normal stuff, but pay it ALL off at the end of every month.

But I don't think the credit card companies hate people like us for 2 reasons:

1) For every one of us, there's a buttload who pay the minimum rather than the entire balance.

2) In my case, I think that in 4 years of college I forgot to pay off my balance (simply forgot to send in the check) once or possibly twice. I remembered a bit late and called Discover to see what to do, and they would tell me to pay the balance (or the minimum payment, not that I actually did that) plus a late fee.

I can't remember how much the late fee was. Maybe about $20? Anyway, at the kind of monthly balance I was running (not high), I'd wager that $20 was equivalent to maintaining an actual balance and paying the interest for a month or two or three. Which makes Maher's argument that they are "profiting from people's mistakes" reasonably accurate.


...On the other hand, Discover had "cashback bonus" awards of .5 to 1% or so, from which I stocked up and claimed somewhere in the $50-100 range over the 4 years, definitely enough to keep me in the net positive range in spite of a $20 late fee or two. That tells me that the magnitude of my "mistakes" must have been tiny in comparison to average credit card users.

I don't think Discover is an evil company per se for "preying" on people that don't use the card in the same way that you or I would. Paying a $20 late fee was a fully reasonable thing to charge me with. On the other hand, there's many many examples of predatory type fees that really do take advantage of people for "offenses" that are way less egregious, even things that have previously been considered standard use of the product / service in the past (paying WAY more for an extra inch of legroom, checked bags, food, etc. on airplanes comes to mind). Many of those arguably do cross the line into "evil" territory, I think.

Hi thedeusmachine, I got a message the cashback short was dead. The short seems to be on your name now so i cant update it anymore, can you update the link to below?

Its this one:
http://videosift.com/video/Cashback-Oscar-nominated-short-film

Update embed to:
<iframe frameborder="0" width="480" height="270" src="//www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/xthts" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Cashback door drukskill

From: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xthts_cashback_creation

Thanks!
Kind regards,
RBAR

This video has been declared a duplicate; transferring votes to the original video and killing this dupe - dupeof declared by dystopianfuturetoday.

*dupeof=http://www.videosift.com/video/Cashback-Oscar-nominated-short-film

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Cashback' to 'Cashback, I know kung fu, martial art, power overwhelming' - edited by gwiz665

I posted this a couple years ago here. You have to remember to search for videos you're posting, not just validate the embed code. Thanks.

I know that was the scene that introduced me to the movie as well. Sometimes the people here know of some cool sh*t

In reply to this comment by EndAll:
good, eh? I had seen the super-market-slap-scene here on the sift before but didn't realize it was from the movie until the scene came on the screen.. brilliant bit of film

In reply to this comment by rottenseed:
haha I just watched it the other night.

In reply to this comment by EndAll:
Soooo.... I'm off to watch Cashback.

good, eh? I had seen the super-market-slap-scene here on the sift before but didn't realize it was from the movie until the scene came on the screen.. brilliant bit of film

In reply to this comment by rottenseed:
haha I just watched it the other night.

In reply to this comment by EndAll:
Soooo.... I'm off to watch Cashback.

In reply to this comment by xxovercastxx:
a long time ago? you only joined 3 months ago.
i posted on my blog,and i came to lurk the sift when it first started.
with fed and mink from taytv.
i never posted any vids though,just commented.
did some traveling for a bit,came back to my account being toast.
since i had no vids to lose i just reupped a new account.

http://cinema.videosift.com/video/Cashback-2004-short-film

haha I just watched it the other night.

In reply to this comment by EndAll:
Soooo.... I'm off to watch Cashback.

Soooo.... I'm off to watch Cashback.

The entire full-length movie is good. Beautiful women, but a great story, some good laughs, and good characters as well.

Give it a go if you haven't yet.

In reply to this comment by rbar:
Is the whole movie any good? I really liked the short, but I wonder if they can keep it up.

For anyone with a Netflix account you can watch the whole movie here: http://www.netflix.com/WatchNowMovie/Cashback/70070482?trkid=200171

Here's one on the 'Flix to checkout, Cashback