fursav: What about debit cards?
Have 6 of them tied to 6 different bank accounts with 6 different banks (in this day and age with how much you
can't trust banks, it's best to have your money spread around I say :), but I may only 1
one about once a year?
Honestly, in Bangkok, there are 5 ATMs on every street corner so it's easy to get cash and, unlike America where banks rip you off with fees if you use an ATM that doesn't belong to your bank, here in Thailand if you use another bank's ATM the fees are 3 baht (about 9 cents! :).
I definitely have my complaints about Thailand :), but Thai banks aren't one of them. They're AWESOME.
In Thailand, you can pay all your bills at an ATM machine (electricity, phone, cable, satellite, internet etc) and, if I buy something like airline tickets, I send an email to my travel agent, she sends me quotes, I compare them with prices I see online, choose the cheapest one and she reserves the flight for me for 24 hours. Then I walk half a block to the ATM and I pay her by transferring cash from my bank account to hers.. (Most people in Thailand pay things like flights with direct transfers from their bank account to the travel agency's). Whole thing takes about 30 minutes and I have my flight. No fees, no credit card interest etc.
I've been in Thailand for 10 years and never needed a credit card. I use PayPal for online stuff but, as most things are cheaper in Thailand than what I can buy online, other than games I rarely buy anything else.
Being debt-free, though, life is easy. Plus, as a friend of mine once drummed into my head, when you are debt-free you have FAR more choices. I can pick up and move to Spain next month, take a week's vacation in Malaysia, or go to
China tomorrow if I want to. I have money to do all of these things and more. Which was an impossibility when I used to be in debt. Just paying the bills was a freakin' headace :)
orcishgamer: I don't have debt, but I have a credit card for online purchases (Visa Debit actually). So you dislike Amazon, possibly Visa and MasterCard but are okay with Paypal, the kings of dicking over customers as they feel like it... wow.
Dude, learn to read.
As I said, I hate PayPal, but when 60 percent of my income is paid by clients who will ONLY pay thru PP, I unfortunately have no choice.
You pick your battles. Sorry if my refusal to use Amazon pisses you off. But, frankly, I really don't give a shit.
Bloodygoodgames: There are deal breakers to me and Amazon's shutting down WikiLeaks servers after being pressured by the US government was the one that broke the camels back. Before that, they were an average company (never had any major problems with them, never had any stellar customer service either -- just average).
But, once they shut down WikiLeaks, in an attempt to stop people being able to read about what illegal things the US government and other governments around the world were doing because the US government asked them to, I was done with them. Haven't shopped there since. Never will.
StingingVelvet: A US company obeying US laws and not hosting government secrets which could be construed as treasonous? How dare they!
Christ man... even if you are pro-wikileaks you can still recognize amazon would be stupid to do otherwise.
Wow, you're really brainwashed by the US government aren't you? "Could be construed as treasonous? ROFTL.
Right. When was the act of publishing the truth about the internationally illegal acts a government has carried out 'treasonous'? Oh yeah. When the US government doesn't want the rest of the world to know what murdering scumbags they are. (The video of the US military murdering journalists in Iraq would never have come out without WikiLeaks. A massive embarrassment to the US, as it should have been).