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In Germany Amazon will not accept online bank transfers if you're profiled as living in an area with a lowered credit rate. It seems to be mostly tied to street adresses, not an actual individual credit score. As in, i have to pay Amazon with a credit card because those students two houses down the road don't have the cash in their accounts for their purchases...
I don't understand, an online bank transfer means they already got your money once you paid for it. So what if the students down the road don't have enough in their account.
Amazon India also offers Cash on delivery. But will not in certain areas of the country where recovery has been bad.
I don't understand, an online bank transfer means they already got your money once you paid for it. So what if the students down the road don't have enough in their account.
The default online transfer here is a "Bankeinzug", i.e. allowing the seller to withdraw the money from your account. Payment generally only occurs after the item has been sent, and in addition you can afterwards retroactively cancel the money transfer by claiming the withdrawal was fraudulent. Virtually any company that does proper business with people in Germany uses this method, and even debit card payment in stores works the same way. Except with Amazon.
Currently offered payment options by Amazon in Germany are:
- Credit Card (with charging before item is sent out)
- Bankeinzug (as above)
- Billing (payment after delivery of item, new customers max 100 Euro) and
- vouchers (to be bought in stores).
However Amazon "reserves the right to restrict payment to credit card only for any purchase" (except if prepaying by buying vouchers), which they'll basically always do dependent on their adress-based scoring.
The default online transfer here is a "Bankeinzug", i.e. allowing the seller to withdraw the money from your account. Payment generally only occurs after the item has been sent.
After ? hmm send first and collect later.
Not sure but i think nothing gets sent unless its paid for here only exception is with COD
Ah the retroactively cancel bit does not exist here with net banking. Once you enter the 2FA code its gone that is if you don't return it within ten days and unopened.
Only way to retroactively cancel is with a CC, its called a charge back.
On average only one in three Germans even owns a credit card, and on average makes two purchases per month with it, for an average value of somewhere around 25-30 Euro per purchase.
That's really quite astounding. 70% of Americans have credit cards, the typical person with credit cards has four, and according to my Google-fu, the typical American household has $16,061 in credit card debt.
Perhaps you could elaborate for us the connotations of the German word for debt - schuld.
"Every man has his weakness. Mine was always just cigarettes."
That's really quite astounding. 70% of Americans have credit cards, the typical person with credit cards has four, and according to my Google-fu, the typical American household has $16,061 in credit card debt.
Then I'm way behind the power(debt) curve. I have 1 card and less than 2 grand debt on it.
In my younger/dumber days I was damn close to the average though.
(edit) but in our society thats how you get good credit for those major purchases (car/house).
Income to debt ratio and how you pay your bills
No financial institution is going to make your first loan a mortgage. They want to see a history
but in our society thats how you get good credit for those major purchases (car/house). Income to debt ratio and how you pay your bills
Credit scoring over here is way more complicated. Schufa rules over us all, collecting credit history on virtually anyone in Germany (seriously, they boast having data on 67.5 million people in Germany - that's basically 98% of all adults). Multiple credit cards or bank accounts or switching between different credit card providers or banks for debit cards, buying even smaller stuff on loans regularly*, asking perhaps even multiple banks whether they'll give you a mortgage or other loan? That's the absolute surefire way to bring your Schufa score down.
* Most stores nowadays offer "microloans" through their house banks for amounts of a few hundred Euro, for things like buying a new TV or furniture.
Percentage share of non-cash financial transactions in Germany:
The 50.6% bar for "Lastschriften" are for giving someone else permission to withdraw the amount from your account.
The 29.6% bar for "Überweisungen" are actively transferring money by a bank order to someone else.
The 0.2% bar for "E-Geld" is Paypal, Bitcoin and similar schemes.
Lastschriften are overwhelmingly used for standing contracts, but are also a very common way of paying with your debit card for smaller amounts - stores, if you pay by debit card, mostly automatically switch the payment option between "debit card" and "Lastschrift" depending on what will cost less for them, even if a Lastschrift carries the risk of nonpayment. Überweisungen are used mostly in one-off transfers, say paying your utilities or some bill that you got.
The above covers 21.4 billion transactions, which comes out to exactly one transaction per work day (Mon-Sat) per adult person in Germany in 2016.
according to my Google-fu, the typical American household has $16,061 in credit card debt.
That's actually not as high as it may seem. The difference here is availability; those that get hooked on credit lines here do rack up significant numbers too.
Among families, that is households with 3 or more people, 30% of households have consumer credit debts that run $12,500 on average.
Among singles and couples, only 18% of households have consumer credit debts - which run $9,400 on average.
And yes, 79% of households in Germany do not have any consumer credit debts at all.
Consumer credit by definition also includes e.g. a loan you take out for a new car for example. Basically anything that isn't a mortgage (which is after all leveraged) or student loans (which tend to have special conditions).
I've definitely become a smartphone fan, even if I was initially skeptical.
-GPS
-Email (which means access to important documents or hotel information)
-Notepad (better than a notepad since I can never lose it)
-Camera (and associated gallery so I can electronically send pictures)
-Full internet (so I can search for restaurants or whatever easily on the move, or pay my credit card bill if I forgot)
-Blood pressure recorder (since I have hypertension)
-Easy to watch Netflix or videos or whatever if I am sitting in bed (tablet most likely better for this, but I don't want ANOTHER product)
I'm not going to deny smartphones are useful, but I think it's a problem when people become dependent on them at the expense of developing practical skills.
Curious comment about the smartphone being better than a notepad, since you "can never lose it". What happens if you lose the smartphone?
I find myself more and more often leaving the smartphone at home when I go out after work or on the weekends. I notice half the people at the bars are usually staring at the smartphone for a lot of the time. I don't even want mine with me when I'm at the bar.
Last weekend, I took the battery out the back of my phone on a Friday afternoon, and didn't put it back in until Monday morning. I do have to have a phone with me at all times M-F during business hours for work, but I think I'm just going to ditch it between Friday evenings and Monday morning, unless, of course, I'm expecting calls or am meeting up with someone.
Mine are 40 years old. So are the ceiling fans. The fridge is even older
It's a shame ceiling fans have fallen into disuse in the US in favor of AC. My landlord offered me the use of an air conditioner for $50/month. I turned him down. I was tempted to ask him to send an electrician over and wire in a ceiling fan though. When I was in India, I quickly learned the value of the ceiling fan, and how miserable things can be when there's a power outage. They really work. I think most Americans have largely forgotten how well ceiling fans can cool a room, now that AC is all but universal.
Even though temperatures in Minneapolis routinely peak in the 90s or even low 100s in the summer (32 to 40C), I'd rather do without. I simply use a reversible twin window fan, and have my refrigerator and microwave situated a few inches behind it. That way the heat they generate gets directly jetted outside. The room stays a very reasonable temperature nearly all the time. And if it does get too hot inside, I can just go out and find something to do, which I'd rather be doing anyways.
It's a shame ceiling fans have fallen into disuse in the US in favor of AC. My landlord offered me the use of an air conditioner for $50/month. I turned him down. I was tempted to ask him to send an electrician over and wire in a ceiling fan though. When I was in India, I quickly learned the value of the ceiling fan, and how miserable things can be when there's a power outage. They really work. I think most Americans have largely forgotten how well ceiling fans can cool a room, now that AC is all but universal.
Even though temperatures in Minneapolis routinely peak in the 90s or even low 100s in the summer (32 to 40C), I'd rather do without. I simply use a reversible twin window fan, and have my refrigerator and microwave situated a few inches behind it. That way the heat they generate gets directly jetted outside. The room stays a very reasonable temperature nearly all the time. And if it does get too hot inside, I can just go out and find something to do, which I'd rather be doing anyways.
Don't they use ceiling fans in the south ? maybe gunny can enlighten us.
Fans work up to a point after which only AC will work. I'm fine with them in Bangalore but in areas closer to sea level with high humidity i don't think ceiling fans are the answer. Electricity costs are the main reason we hold on to fans. AC power consumption is quite high and even more if you need to run off a generatr or inverter. Fans will work just fine in that case.
Then I'm way behind the power(debt) curve. I have 1 card and less than 2 grand debt on it. In my younger/dumber days I was damn close to the average though.
(edit) but in our society thats how you get good credit for those major purchases (car/house).
Income to debt ratio and how you pay your bills
No financial institution is going to make your first loan a mortgage. They want to see a history
True dat Gunny.
When I was a shiny new Second Lieutenant at Mother Benning you were expected to join the Officers Club. So I did. The Club Card was a Master Card with a $200 limit. Ran that sucker up fast!!! Learned my lesson then paid it off. Got to Germany and wanted a big stack stereo system. So I used the Deferred Payment Program...basically a loan on very low interest. Next I bought a car, got a loan from AMEX bank and paid it off within 2 years before I left. A year later I got my first mortgage. I paid mortgage and car with direct payroll deduction. I was able to build a good credit rating. Lesson learned from that first credit card!
“Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
Mark Twain
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