Credit Card Companies STILL Encouraging Consumers to Overspend

My interior design business accepts credit card payments, so periodically I get these "Change in Merchant Processing Terms" notices from the bank telling me about increased processing rates, mandatory procedural changes to safeguard clients' account information, etc.  I recently received one of these notices advising me that, instead of declining credit card sales when the consumer has insufficient available credit, from now on, the credit card machine is going to partially approve the sale -- allowing the consumer to max out that credit card -- and prompt the sales person to request a second payment form to complete the sale.

Let's think about that for a moment.  At first glance, what's the big deal?  If the customer's card was declined outright, they were always able to request to have a lesser amount charged to the card and split the sale between two methods of tender if they wanted to.  When I worked in retail part-time as a student, I saw that happen quite a bit.  Some customers would ask ahead of time, before you ran the card; "Please put $800 on this card and the rest on that one."  However, I also saw that having one's credit card declined outright at the point-of-sale, especially when the store is busy and there are other shoppers in line behind you, can be a rock-bottom slap-in-the-face wakeup call to a consumer whose spending has gone out of control.  I like to think that some of those maxed-out shoppers went home and took a cold, hard look at their financial situation and perhaps began the hard work of digging themselves out.  I don't know what the exact statistics are, but I'd guess that an awful lot of consumers walked away without purchasing when their credit card was declined, or at least decided to purchase fewer items to bring down their total. Now that the credit card companies will be issuing partial approvals, cashiers will be saying "Your card went through for $xxx.  How would you like to pay the remaining balance?" instead of "I'm sorry sir/ma'am, but your card was declined."  It's a subtle difference, but the only reason I can think of why the credit card companies would want to do this is to encourage consumers to go deeper and deeper into debt.  What do you think?

Design Tragedy or Design Opportunity? Even Better Than the First Time, Baby!

If you missed my earlier posts about this project I'm working on for a client who had a house fire, you can catch up here.  This client has such an amazing attitude about the disaster -- instead of moping about everything that was lost, she's made up her mind to rebuild and redecorate, not just in hopes of making things look the way they were before the fire, but taking advantage of the opportunity to change things about the home that she had resigned herself to before the fire, and the rise up from the ashes -- literally! -- even better than before.

So her walk-in closet will be enlarged, appliances and cabinetry in both kitchens will be upgraded, an elevator may be added to facilitate visits from the clients' elderly parents, and lighting will be added and/or upgraded in several areas.  I brought my client in to Fine Art Lamps' High Point Market showroom a few days ago for a private showing of the line, and we both fell in love with this enormous oversized pendant fixture from the Mid-Century Inspirations collection to hang over the pool table in her Game Room.  Pictures do not do this line justice at all.  The fixtures are all made-to-order in the U.S. and the company is wonderful about accommodating designers' customization requests whenever feasible, but beware -- the pricing is not for the faint-of-heart.  The photo above is from the manufacturer's web site, and I took the photo below myself in the showroom the other day.  The finishes are all hand applied, and this piece combines two gorgeous art glass styles.  The larger pieces of glass are smooth on the outside and textured on the inside, with a mesmerizing metallic shimmer that perfectly echoes the wrapped metallic bead trim from Kravet that we used (and are using again) on the black silk velvet drapery panels and the little door valance.

 Here's what the almost-completed room looked like before it was destroyed in the fire.  Virtually everything in this room has been written off as a loss.  I'm going to be campaigning hard to paint the vaulted ceilings a darker color this time, especially now that we're considering this dramatic, sculptural light fixture. 

As Porky Pig would say, "That's all for now, folks!"  :-)