But is it the bank's responsibility to enforce the contract?
I would rather have a civil court be the recourse for a broken contract than for a third non-governmental party to handle it.
I suppose if it was written into the contract that the bank would perform this role prior to the card being obtained and this being made abundantly clear to both sides things would be a little different. Still, ideally I would have the bank as the holder and mover of funds at the will of the cardholder, not someone outside of the contract between the bank and cardholder.
Oops, meant to upvote you. I agree. I guess when you agree to use credit cards you're not just using a payment instrument the bank has made for your convenience, but choosing to use a system which the banks find lucrative and the merchant exert a good deal of control over. Consumers are not as politically proactive as merchants so we can't be surprised to find the laws favor the merchants.
[edit] Someone upstream mentioned authorizations. I'd like to know more about how authorizations work with subscriptions. Do they keep a rolling six month queue of auths or is there a seperate and unique structure for recurring payments?
> so we can't be surprised to find the laws favor the merchants.
The contracts that merchants enter with credit card companies are very much not in the merchants' favor.
That may not always translate into being in the customer's favor (as opposed to the banks'), but merchants are certainly not the ones winning in this setup.
I would rather have a civil court be the recourse for a broken contract than for a third non-governmental party to handle it.
I suppose if it was written into the contract that the bank would perform this role prior to the card being obtained and this being made abundantly clear to both sides things would be a little different. Still, ideally I would have the bank as the holder and mover of funds at the will of the cardholder, not someone outside of the contract between the bank and cardholder.