Don't Give Your Kids This Pernicious Piece of Plastic
Summary
My dad used to leave my pocket money on his chest of drawers every Saturday morning - a little pile made up of 1p, 2p and 5p coins. I remember my 13th birthday well; the pocket money went up from 12p a week to 13p - enough to buy a couple more sherbet lemons. Or perhaps, if I stashed enough away after a few weeks I would be able to buy that Ultravox single I'd been after.
Fast forward to a 13-year-old today. Forget a pile of coins and you can now forget a wad of notes. You can simply hand over a plastic card, akin to a debit card, and top it up whenever you like. Thanks to Mastercard, EMAP, the publisher and Bluecorner, the affinity card group, teenagers will be able to buy what they like using plastic. My reaction on hearing the news was the same as that of the National Consumer Council - it fears that the cards will get children used to spending money that is not theirs and that they will go hopelessly into debt once they are old enough to apply for a credit card.See the full content of this document
Extract
Don't Give Your Kids This Pernicious Piece of Plastic
We are a nation riddled with personal debt - the Consumer Credit Counselling Service reckons that 18-year-olds calling for help have on average five credit pr...
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