Which is especially worrying considering the interest rate:
It’s so crazy to have credit cards, we call them that here in the EU too but there is usually not much “credit” on them and you’re supposed to be on the plus side… What a wild idea.
We call that a debit card
Can you explain what you mean by being on the plus side? You’re supposed to have a balance on a credit card, like it’s a debit card?
My credit cards I’ve had in Germany/Austria were all basically glorified debit-cards which had their own bank account attached to them. Technically I had a credit limit of a couple thousand, but I never went into the negative.
The only difference (for me at least) was that I could use them to rent a car, which is nice.
Youre supposed to not be in debt, even if you’re allowed, that’s like the general consensus.
Credit cards in the US are extremely easy to get and easy to fall into inescapable debt with. I went to a hardware store and signed up for one so I could get 0% financing on some appliances over a year. I asked for like a $2k card. I told them I made $30k a year and they gave me a card with a limit of $8k about 2 minutes later. Now my finances were never even checked, just my credit score. I could have easily lied and said I made way more to get a higher limit, because I actually did lie and said I make less so they wouldn’t give me such a high credit limit. It would be very easy for me to get a higher credit than I have income I think.