>>>>>>>You don't want a cash back. That's you giving a free loan to the seller, which they don't return in 50-90% cases (depending on each seller's sales department; so far HP is the worst, ColdFusion (or whoever they are now), Office Depot the best).
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>>>>>>Rebates may be like that, but a cash back credit card isn't. I pay the same price whether I use the card or cash. Once a year, my credit card company gives me a great big credit based on how much I charged in the last year.
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>>>>>So that's unrelated to any particular purchase - it's more of a bait for the next year, no matter what they call it. As far as advertising/baiting goes, this looks the cleanest. They could have wasted that money on some worthless piece of ugliness and sent it to you as an appreciation gift, or send you a gift card to an outlet where you'd never shop.
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>>>>>Of course, one has to think how much money did they make on you when they could afford to give this and still make a profit...
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>>>>They don't make much money at all on cardholders who pay the bill in full every month. They make up for it gouging those who don't.
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>>>This kind of gift is probably an incentive to spend even more... until the glitch happens, and you get behind in your payments. Then the late fees kick in (not as in "the late mr Paterson", they're quite alive and kicking in and out), bounced check fees, interest goes up... all the nice parts of the game come to play :).
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>>>I somehow doubt they'd catch Tamar.
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>>Correct. We've had at least one credit card since about 1980 and we've never carried a balance. We view credit cards as simply a way to avoid worrying about how much cash (or when traveling, what kind of currency) is in our pockets (and, with the cashback card, a way to save a little on what we buy).
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>>Tamar
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>I don't know if this applies in the states but here if you but anything over £100 and you have a dispute over the goods the credit card company have to stand the loss. This sometimes shows up when people have booked flights or holidays which then don't happen for reasons outside their control (for instance the airline going bust). People how have paid by debit card lose their money as they are an unsecured creditor, people who used credit cards don't lose anything.

It's quite different here. Any cardholder has the right to dispute a charge against their account, whether they don't think they spent it or there is an issue with the goods or service. The payment processing company -- I have one for a client -- notifies the merchant and the credit card company (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, etc.). The CC company temporarily credits the cardholder the disputed amount, takes it back from the merchant, the processor takes it back from the CC company (called a chargeback), and there is an investigation. There are layers of appeals available but usually there is just one form from the cardholder to the CC company with documentation of the claim. If it is determined that the claim is valid, that is the end of it. Otherwise the CC company puts the charge back through. The important point is that in the case of a valid claim, it is the merchant who bears the cost, not the card issuer.

The only way the processing company loses money is if the merchant disappears -- which happens shockingly often. Not meaning going out of business, just closing the bank account and avoiding the processing company. (Usually to switch to a different processor -- there are a million of them and merchants are often cheap, with all the loyalty of alleycats).