the problem with retailers' cards is that each retailer awards its own card and people end up carrying too many of them. since every retailer accepts credit cards, credit card companies should allow for an additional magnetic bar or chip to be added at the back of the credit card that will store any and all retailer's points (gas station, supermarket, groceries, malls, airlines etc). swipe the card once so that the scanner reads the balance and gives the discount, swipe it once again to make payment.

Amex, Mastercard, Discover whatever. When you get a new credit card you also get a secure internet browser to install on your computer or internet phone. Everything's highly encrypted. Whatever you come across online that accepts your credit card for payment you press the buy button on the browser and that's it. No need to enter credit card or any details. Not secure enough? Another solution. A secure url managed by the credit card company that acts as web navigator where merchants submit their sites. Customer surfs the web and makes payment instantly of any product available online.

Does paying the full amount on your credit card every month make your credit score increase the fastest? Yeah??

No it doesn't. Your score goes up but that's not the fastest way it can go up. You must always leave a minimum amount unpaid. How much? Say the total you owe is $100 and this month you must pay a minimum of $5. Don't pay the full amount even if you can. Just pay $95. This will raise your score faster than if you paid the full $100. Banks reward their making some money too you see. Most people don't know about it!!

The banks set the maximum amount of credit you can have but it be nice if they also gave their customers the option to set their own daily weekly or monthly spending limits. It can be offered as an extra service in the customer's online banking account. This way people can have more control over their spending.

When I got my first credit card out of college, it was a stupendously crappy one. $500 limit, secured. Couldn't be less prestigious. But it was a "titanium" card with a metallic finish, and the bank's logo was screen printed across it with cheap ink. I scraped the logo off with a coin in about 10 seconds and just had a blank, gray Mastercard. I was quite amazed at the reactions this provoked among the many people who assumed it must be something quite exclusive. It was a conversation starter and I leveraged it into a few dates.

Gold has turned black. VISA came out with what it calls the world's most prestigious and exclusive card and named it the 'Black Card' (https://www.blackcard.com). Maybe it's just me thinking like that, but isn't black the color of mourning? When people everywhere experience the most severe credit crunch ever, black associates with bleak. It might be 'appropriate' to name the card black but will it make people spend? Why not name it the Carbon Card after the material it's made of?

This is not my idea. A lot of you may already know about it. For those that don't, I copy and paste: "It's a home remedy for impulsive spending. You put your credit card into a glass of water and put the glass in the freezer. Then, when you impulsively decide to make a purchase, you must first wait for the ice to thaw before extracting the card. By then, your compulsion to purchase has subsided. You can't put the card in the microwave, of course, because then you'd destroy the magnetic strip." The concept might not work well in high temperature climates but it might still worth trying if you want to use some good sense of humor to reign in on your impulsive spending :)

Something's not right and some things I can't understand... When we say a lot of people lost money in a credit gamble where do these losses go? Aren't the losses someone else's winnings? How is it possible that everyone is losing money at the same time? Unless people lost something they never had that should never bring us into the kind of recession everyone talks about, you know there's no money to go around any more. Where can the money really go? It doesn't just fly...Seems to me this global financial crisis is more a symptom of an economic transformation, the winners of that credit spree will decide the new direction of economic growth but who are the winners? News are full of losers but no one is pointing at the winners who will essentially be the new lenders. I think that is what we need to see more of in the news, stories of winners so that we know where to apply next for work and funding for new projects

I was thinking of creating a book lending business in airports for travelers on long flights. Instead of buying the book in the airport bookshop the passenger can borrow it only for the course of the flight by having the credit card charged full retail price of the book. Upon arriving in the destination airport the passenger returns the book and gets full refund in their credit card. The book can then only be re-lent to passengers traveling back to the country airport the book originally came from. (read more)

You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave...

http://www.controlyourcredit.gov

If only those who score high in the game could claim their portion of the $700bn bailout plan...Americans love games but when will they stop playing and deal with the crisis seriously?