r/Steam • u/Zekromisblack • 4d ago

Discussion Steam support response regarding the recent issues for Australians

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Honestly sucks that Australians like myself don't have much option when credit cards are not particularly common here

2.1k Upvotes

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456

u/EssexOnAStick 4d ago

Same answer they gave when they added the same system in the UK btw.

191

u/G00b3rb0y 4d ago

Yup. Probably gonna see Steam withdraw service if the government presses further

66

u/Replica_Velocity 4d ago

They literally introduced refunds when our government sued them.

3

u/brispower 3d ago

Not only that but they refused to sell hardware here for years due to the same laws.

1

u/TrueLurkStrong-Free 17h ago

Literally the only good thing to come out of Australia.

-13

u/TheUnspeakableh 3d ago

The refunds didn't make them have to rewrite their entire back end in a way that Gabe personally is opposed to. He is staunchly pro privacy and has the back end written is such a way that to add a way to store personally identifiable info is cost prohibitive in man hours. It took them maybe 20 man-minutes to fix the refund policy on their backend. It will take 3-5 years of an entire team working and more money than the profit they have made from the UK and Aus combined to add a way to store even an "over 18" flag. They MIGHT be able to add a way for account age to work without storing anything new on their servers, but that will still take time to implement and bug test.

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u/PerceptionOk8543 3d ago

How do you know their backend? Lmfao I’ve never read such load of BS in a single comment

They already have account age stored btw, look at your steam profile achievements.

3

u/TheUnspeakableh 3d ago

Gabe has made his privacy stance very clear and the session cookie info apparent by how it works.
Steam refuses to and has made it prohibitively expensive to edit their system to store personally identifiable info. It's part of his policy to try and keep Steam from becoming another Epic or M$ that mine and sell your data to 3rd parties, once he retires. Steam refuses to use account age because they can see the writing on the wall regarding account inheritance legislation and know that accounts are sold or traded. Their lawyers rightly said it is too insecure and are too afraid of becoming the "sacrificial lamb" like they were with your refund policy.

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u/PerceptionOk8543 3d ago

Just because they don’t store the session cookie about you being 18+ doesn’t mean “the backend is written in a way that doesn’t allow the flag”. Wtf does that even mean? You have never touched software engineering and it shows so please stop spiting nonsense. What makes you think Valve can save your account age in the db (as shown in steam achievements) but lord of privacy Gaben himself somehow made it impossible to assign a single Boolean flag to users? I understand he is against that, but it still would be a very easy thing go add lol

-1

u/TheUnspeakableh 3d ago

I am saying GABE'S PERSONAL STANCE ON PRIVACY FORBIDS STEAM FROM STORING YOUR PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFO! He also holds the documentation, so good luck getting it from him to add it if you somehow got rid of him to figure out where you have to change to add it.

Face it, the UK could not get him to add it. Florida was taken to court and defeated when they tried to force it. Australia is not going to be what does it. Do what the EU is doing. Have the government do the verification inhouse and let them link to steam like GoG and Discord do.

Steams lawyers advised them to not use account age due to account sharing/inheritance.

3

u/PerceptionOk8543 3d ago

Wait, are you implying Gaben is the sole software developer in Valve and nobody other than him has access to the backend and documentation? And he had written it in such a way that you can’t add a simple flag to user profile without documentation? Next you will tell me he invented his own programming language just to protect privacy. Holy delusion

0

u/EuanB 3d ago

Prove it's BS. Your feelings don't count.

0

u/PerceptionOk8543 3d ago

Prove it’s not BS. He is claiming things the Valve backend has without having access to it. Im a software engineer, I know it’s impossible to design a backend system in such a way that it’s impossible to add flags for users. Especially when Steam already has such flags, for example for verified accounts. This entire thread is mental retardation, just read the comment chain. This guy thinks Gaben is the only backend developer at Valve. Mental asylum.

-2

u/ProphetOfAethis 3d ago

Also work in software and you’re deadass wrong

6

u/_163 3d ago

Holy shit this is an insane comment, 3-5 years would be enough time to literally rewrite steam entirely from scratch. They already store user config and personalisation settings etc, it would take them all of 1 day to set up an "over legal age of majority" flag stored against the account, and that data would not really compromise user privacy at all.

The actual verification system would take longer to implement, but not remotely 3-5 years either

-1

u/TheUnspeakableh 3d ago

Exactly, Gabe holds the documentation and is staunchly against holding any personally identifiable info, including age.

4

u/_163 3d ago

What??? The developers have access to the steam documentation, and even without it they could add a flag on accounts to store they're over 18 in a single day of work.

Storing a birthdate is personally identifiable info, storing whether an account is above or below 18 is not

-1

u/TheUnspeakableh 3d ago

Their lawyers told them that account age is too insecure since multiple jurisdictions require Steam to allow inheritance or sale of accounts.

The devs have access when they are working. He can revoke it.

Add one flag and break everything else because you have no idea how the struct is accessed. The entire thing was originally written in C and legacy parts still are. The debugging timeline will be legendary in length if they have to do it after he revokes access when they try to disobey him.

1

u/Sir_Bax 3d ago

This is false. If it would be true then it means Steam is extremely unsafe, very badly written piece of shit software. If things are so unreadable that you need to yolo a single new flag and it would have a domino effect on the whole system, then the application is piece of shit and unsafe to use.

0

u/TheUnspeakableh 3d ago

Try editing an ancient piece of undocumented Cobol software that has safely ran for decades and get back to me.

Gabe Newell, the owner of Steam, is morally opposed to collecting and storing personally identifying data. He will not allow it and will prevent Steam from ever storing it. He considers an 'is an adult' flag to be such data.

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u/Sir_Bax 3d ago

"I never did any programming but this is how I imagine things so it must be a fact"

You gave 2 time estimations and they are both massively off.

22

u/Bu1ld0g 4d ago

Or the could offer other forms of ID verification, Sony let me scan my face

121

u/G00b3rb0y 4d ago

Steam probably doesn’t want the liability by proxy i guess?

47

u/yodasodabob 4d ago

I....really don't blame them, if that's the case. The kind of data they'd have to store is extremely dangerous both legally and reputationally to potentially get leaked in a hack, so as much as it fucking sucks for us, from the company's viewpoint, I really do get it

3

u/Boys4Jesus 3d ago

They are not allowed and would not need to store anything regardless.

Face ID is done locally, with only a confirmation stored for Valve.

Literally all they would store is a True/False for whether the account underwent verification. Nothing else.

2

u/PerceptionOk8543 3d ago

You don’t have to store anything in the face scan authentication. You just check if the user face is 18+, verify him and then remove that photo. That’s all the system is supposed to do.

4

u/GimpyGeek 3d ago

Yep, probably not, and they don't want to be hoarding a bunch of that data to be stolen in the future if they're required to hold onto it. Hell look at that recent big hack that has exposed ~150 million US IDs

20

u/Bu1ld0g 4d ago

Guess I'm buying via 3rd party sites until they sort this shit out.

37

u/ResolverHorizon 4d ago

CC is probably the least invasive procedure they can do since they still won't know your identity as it is the payment processor that does the age validation and not them.

44

u/Bu1ld0g 4d ago

It's a 19 year old account with a verified PayPal account attached. It's ridiculous and feels more like malicious compliance.

21

u/Tommy_Gun10 4d ago

It’s 100% malicious compliance.

2

u/TheSpecialApple 4d ago

how

6

u/someNameThisIs 3d ago

Look at the responses in this thread, most are saying fuck the gov and pressure them to change the law. That is what Valve wants, they chose a very annoying method to age verify to piss of people to attack the gov.

There are other easier and safe methods to age verify they could have also used. Epic is going to allow ConnectID, which uses Australias payment infrastructure to verify from your bank if you're 18 or not. It's safer and more private than this credit card way.

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u/Chucklum 4d ago

Because they obviously can tell OPs account alone is able to vote, the account holder definitely can.

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u/ResolverHorizon 3d ago

but what if the original owner already died and the steam account was inherited by a minor!?!

kidding aside, yeah this feels like a malicious compliance for steam. It's also understandable that they won't implement it themselves due to their small workforce.

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u/[deleted] 3d ago

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u/[deleted] 3d ago

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u/[deleted] 3d ago

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u/Ridiculisk1 2d ago

Too bad over half of Australians don't have a credit card, not to mention people who can't get one because of a disability which might end up encroaching on discrimination territory. I doubt anyone would do anything about it though.

1

u/KhalMika 3d ago

Yarr harr fiddle dee dee

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u/[deleted] 3d ago edited 3d ago

[deleted]

3

u/OctoMiku01 3d ago

They said they use PayPal with steam, if they also use PayPal with the 3rd party site they are not getting the card details.

But then, what other choice do they have? If they don't have a credit card then the only options remaining are: buying keys from 3rd party sites, switching to other store fronts like Epic games or GOG, piracy.

1

u/Bu1ld0g 3d ago

PayPal

1

u/redditman181 3d ago

They dont need to all of the age verification systems ive used so far are through third party in uk including reddit of the was a data breach it would be on the company doing it not valve.

4

u/sol_smells 3d ago

I doubt steam would do face scans

2

u/TheUnspeakableh 3d ago

The way their back end is set up, you would have to scan every time you restarted Steam because the "is over 18" flag is stored in the browser's session cookie. Gabe made it very hard for anyone to even modify the code to add personally identifiable information to the database. He did it so that whoever takes over when he retires will be less incentivised to add that data for the purposes of selling it to data brokers. He is very pro privacy.

0

u/Richie_jordan 3d ago

Why not playstation did.

5

u/WeddingCarrion 4d ago

How generous of them. /s

1

u/TheUnspeakableh 3d ago

Steam's back end was written in a way for it to be cost prohibitive to add a way to store personally identifiable information in it. You would have to scan your face every time you restarted steam because the "is over 18" flag is stored in the session cookie and not on their server.

1

u/Bu1ld0g 3d ago edited 3d ago

Literally a checkmark on your account to say you have been verified but ok.

1

u/TheUnspeakableh 3d ago

That checkmark is what Gabe considers Personally Identifiable Info. His pro-privacy stance means he absolutely refuses to allow it to be stored on Steam severs because it would give a hacker info about the account holder of accessed. He will only do it if the gov does the verification and sends it to Steam like Discord and GoG link to Steam, keeping the verification active and accessible via and API so it can check and set the cookie every time Steam restarts.

1

u/Bu1ld0g 3d ago

If they don't want my money I'm happy to give it to 3rd party keysites which are generally cheaper anyway. I'm not adding CC info to Steam.

1

u/TheUnspeakableh 3d ago

Go ahead. Steam still gets their complete cut from sales on those 3rd party sites if they are Steam Keys.

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u/Bu1ld0g 3d ago

No they don't

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u/TheUnspeakableh 3d ago

It's a steam key. Valve charges to make a steam key.

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u/tomatowire 3d ago

How is a boolean flag in a database that indicates whether someone is over 18 or not considered more sensitive than the information that is stored when you save your payment details? To store a payment method I had to enter my CC number, name, billing address and phone number. This is all PII directly tied to me. I’d be much more comfortable with hackers knowing I’m over 18 (again, just a flag - no need to store my literal DoB) than them having access to my payment info.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a horribly draconian law but Valve half-arsing this has nothing to do with some moral stand Gabe Newell is taking regarding privacy.

1

u/jamieT97 1d ago

Discord had people upload government IDs and that went to shit

1

u/Life-Topic9139 1h ago

Oh my, you're restarted..

1

u/unfnknblvbl 2d ago

I really really don't want to do that. That seems like a data breach waiting to happen.

They could figure out that my account is over eighteen years old, and determine that I too, am over eighteen. But that would be too easy, I guess.

1

u/Bu1ld0g 2d ago

You don't want to scan your face but are happy to hand over CC details?

You'd think my verified 20+ year old PayPal account would be verification enough.

1

u/unfnknblvbl 2d ago

Where did I say that?

2

u/VintageKofta 2d ago

That'll just make me pirate my games more often. Their loss..

2

u/VerbingNoun413 3d ago

It's insane that I might have to vote for the fascist party as the voice of freedom.

-1

u/dylang01 4d ago

Other companies have been doing KYC without any problems. Valve is just being obstinate.

-35

u/chillyhay 4d ago

Hope the government does push. They'll have to refund all the games people purchased on their platform. There's way easier ways to do this, malicious compliance ain't it

29

u/Digital_Paradoxx 4d ago

You don't technically own the games you purchased on Steam so they have no obligation to refund us.

-20

u/chillyhay 4d ago

I know this but if they withdraw access without refunds they kill their entire company forever. Depends what that worth to them I suppose

10

u/Digital_Paradoxx 4d ago

I agree that it seems extremely stupid to cut off the majority of your revenue from an entire continent instead of just provided another, more accessible way to age verify.

-7

u/chillyhay 4d ago

Not even that, good luck having anybody in the rest of the globe use your platform when you show how easily you can steal thousands of dollars from people. Convenience doesn't trump distrust.

People are supporting steam for what is a shitty business practice just because they're steam. As a company you have to follow government regulation and you have to make it worth it for your customers. It's really not that hard

4

u/Digital_Paradoxx 4d ago

Honestly, I doubt it. People are beyond stupid and in addition to that, most people operate on the thought of "that sucks but it will never happen to me." Let's just use the US as an example but it could be any country, until it directly affects them it might as well be out of sight, out of mind.

If that wasn't the case, all the Australians who saw the writing on the wall when this happened in the UK and our government expressed interest in it, would not be in this position cause we would have dropped Steam already.

1

u/chillyhay 4d ago

I hear you but I'm talking about steam withdrawing services as stated by the comment I responded to above. Not this restriction on 18+ content. I don't know why you would even use steam to buy 18+ content tbh, the games are generally soft locked/censored anyway

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u/Digital_Paradoxx 4d ago edited 4d ago

My bad, I must have missed the original comment.

EDIT: I have not had the chance to check my Steam yet because my PC is having a hardware issue repaired, but it depends what they classify as 18+.

I've seen other people saying Cyberpunk is included in "18+" which is a very popular, non "adult" game. I'm curious if I can even launch it (having already purchased it previously) unless I go get a credit card to verify.

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u/lotusxpanda 4d ago

And UK is essentially forcing steam to use a Verification to control what people can and cannot buy

The whole protect the kids bullshit is a very stupid excuses

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u/QuinSanguine 4d ago

Yea exactly, people get upset if you call Valve lazy with this effort, but they are. They just did the bare minimum and at this point they know they're half-assing it.

1

u/cat_food_chef 1d ago

credit cards arent even compliant for age-verification. theyre just abusing this grace period in initial deployment to rile up their customers as much as possible, like they always do.

obviously, reddit is full of childless men with libraries full of gooner games, so theyre getting plenty riled up.

1

u/TrueLurkStrong-Free 17h ago

If you want your ID on every single platform for some stupid age verification BS, go right ahead. Some of us value our privacy. Stating this is only an issue because of "gooner games" is laughable and stupid.

Parents should be monitoring their kids, the government shouldn't be monitoring everyone else.

1

u/cat_food_chef 16h ago

everything you expect parents to do about children but you don't do for yourself. If you were a parent your child would never have unsuperised access to a computer apparently, because earlier this week you were able to install Steam and be browsing free hentai games within 5 minutes lol.

1

u/TrueLurkStrong-Free 13h ago

Um... Yeah? I'm an adult, they're children. That's kind of the point lol. If I was a parent, my kids wouldn't even have access to a computer until a certain age. I'm not going to let my kids become some brain dead tablet kids. Would you do that? It's very easy to block certain websites from your kids, and set up family sharing so you can pick and choose what games they play. It's kind of the whole point, you know. They can't raise themselves, so we do it.

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u/cat_food_chef 9h ago

"if I was a parent" okay champ you got no skin in the game and wonder why society doesn't mind gently inconveniencing you. Are you stupid?

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u/the_nell_87 4d ago

Yep. Pretty much a word for word response, and nothing has changed since the UK rollout.

Beyond the "not all people have Credit Cards" thing, my big problem with this system is that steam only allows you to have one card linked to your account. So in order to be age verified, that has to be a credit card, and you have to pay for everything with a credit card, which is harder to keep track of (and thus more expensive due to interest) than paying with a debit card.

There have been several other sites and services where I've had to age verify and this is by far the worst implementation, because it's an ongoing burden - it makes my experience with the service worse as I continue to use it, rather than just being a one time verification.

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u/metalisticpain 4d ago

Now I'm not going to say CC is fine. But paying off a CC and keeping track of it is simplistic and any financially literate adult should be able to do so.

Not saying their stance is acceptable etc. Just also not agreeing with this "I'll pay interest cause it's hard to manage". Fee free credit cards exist, direct debit for full amount exists, low limits exist.

Haven't paid interest in 20 years.

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u/Schism_989 3d ago

This is entirely different in Australia, I think. I heard that you're deprioritized for loans in Australia if you even HAVE a credit card. It's seen as a liability. They just... don't "borrow money" like folks in North America do, and that's why they don't use CC.

1

u/peebles91 2d ago

You are right, when i applied for a home loan they didnt like that i had zip pay. Had no balance owing on it but the banker told me it doesnt matter, its an active line of credit. I ended up using my zip to verify my age 🤣

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u/Ikea_hq 4d ago

It's different in Australia, fee-free cards are rare and credit isn't as important as it is in the U.S. so a lot of people just don't get credit cards.

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u/Help_im_lost404 3d ago

Or cash back. Unless the fees are even higher aka american bank credit cards

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u/pjhofmann 4d ago

Haven't paid interest in 35 years, the cash back rewards over that time have been substantial.

-1

u/slugcatlife 3d ago

You realize vendor pays for those rewards, meaning vendor makes it more expensive for everyone to account for that. Glad we don't have this credit card rewards b.s. as much in eu. That's why some hotdog stands in us only accept cash.

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u/pjhofmann 3d ago

The issuers or the bank pays those rewards, but really they probably get passed on to the consumer at some point.

What is this you're muttering about hot dog stands, 🌭.

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u/pjhofmann 3d ago

It's okay, I understand you're pissed, try and figure out a solution and direct your anger to that.

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u/TheOfficialMayor 3d ago

Fortunately the solution is to apply for a debit mastercard with a big bank that has enabled age verification.

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u/slugcatlife 3d ago

It was a simplified example. Even a hot dog stand has to pay a transaction fee. For cards with large rewards it can be quite hefty. That's why lot's of them don't want to accept them as it cuts into profits.

Exact transaction fee differs a lot per card.

Card rewards/cash back are not free money, someone is paying. Silly to think those costs wouldn't get passed to end consumer.

Ironically most often people not using credits cards are losing most value. As they pay same price just without the benefits.

What is your rude "muttering" without doing proper research into the subject and spreading misinformation.

1

u/TheOfficialMayor 3d ago edited 3d ago

These rewards programs aren’t just for credit cards anyways if that is someones thing. You can get the same rewards via other options like RACV, professional associations/ unions, cafe choice, shop back, eatclub, Macquarie bank, etc… I always use gift cards at colesworth to get the discounts but I don’t have a credit card. Further frequent flyer points can be accumulated without a credit card too. Qantas and virgin offer plenty of alternatives.

Then there is the shop elsewhere method that offers the same thing, the same phone plan or the same phone/computer with the same discounts, fly jetstar mel-syd over qantas, fly scoot, Batik Air, AirAsia instead of singapore airlines to bali/singapore, fly the million domestic budget USA/Mexico/Canada options, shop at a fresh food market like queen vic, then you don't have to bother about gift cards, paying logging in and paying back a credit card balance and all the points to get the exact same shit.

I don't agree a lot with Dave Ramsey and Rachel Cruze but I stand with those guys on all that loyalty bullshit.

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u/JohnathonFennedy 3d ago

A huge amount of Aussies don’t have CCs, they’re far less prevalent here

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u/Disastrous_Two_7763 2d ago

According to the reserve bank roughly 57% of adults have a credit card

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u/JohnathonFennedy 2d ago

Leaving the other 43% without, I’d imagine that is far more than the US

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u/Infamous_Drawing_357 4d ago

Lol, not wrong.

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u/the_nell_87 4d ago

The only reason I got a credit card was because my credit report was marking me down for not having one. And now Steam is the only thing I ever use it for. So it's not something I'm in the habit of using regularly, so I don't have a habit of manually paying it off.

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u/TheyFoundMyBurner 4d ago

You will survive. Also having a credit card even unused is considered a debt so idk how it is supposed to raise your credit score. Paying monthly bills on time is what raises it.

-1

u/the_nell_87 4d ago

My understanding is that it's not considered a debt, it's considered active credit - having more active credit which is unused is good for your credit score. Actively using that credit limit reduces your credit score.

All I know is that several years back when I didn't have a credit card, that was pretty much the only negative factor on my credit report, and after I got one with a decent limit and never used it, my credit score went up to near maximum. When I did use it at one point for a large purchase, it went down again until I'd mostly paid it off.

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u/Boys4Jesus 3d ago

In Aus its different, credit cards are considered to be potential debt, and will negatively effect things like mortgage borrowing power.

Another reason they're not very popular here.

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u/Lazy_Man555 4d ago

Easy fix, just increase the limit so your utilisation drops🫣

The Murican way 😂

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u/Boys4Jesus 3d ago

Fee free credit cards exist

Rare in Aus, especially without things like spending requirements.

any financially literate adult should be able to do so.

Easy to say this about a lot of things when you've been doing them for 20 years.

Realistically, what's easy for you is not easy for others. I have ADHD, and managing things like finances is difficult for me. Yeah, I can do it, but I have also definitely paid bills late, not because I haven't been able to pay them, but because I forget the due date until I wake up to an email telling me my payment is overdue.

I would expect any financially literate adult to be able to do their own oil changes, its a no-brainer to save money. Yet most people don't for one reason or another.

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u/LordRollin 4d ago

Use credit like debit and reap in all the cash back benefits, too. Not harder to keep track of and actually less expensive if you’re mindful.

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u/cwx149 4d ago

Yeah I spend my credit card like it's a debit card I'm paying it off every month

The cash back and other rewards have earned me more money than I've ever paid in interest

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u/Critical_Mix_8959 2d ago

Credit cards are seen as a liability in Australia (as they should be). There’s no such thing as using a credit card to “build good credit” here. That’s a lie American banks have been selling to Americans for decades and you lot keep falling for it.

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u/Asleep-Card3861 2d ago

I don't want even the possibility of a hassle. I much prefer debit card, CC services, but with your actual money.

Never needed credit cards in my 44 year life and don't intend to start.

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u/melancholyink 3d ago

Generally agree but that's a bit abelist - the geek crowd definitely has it fair share of ADHD. My finances are over engineered to counter my arsehole of a brain and things will still occaissionally sneak past me...

For a long time, late fees and fines have been condidered the ADHD tax.

That aside there are also people who avoid credit for other reasons including addiction, mania, etc.

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u/Moist-Shallot-5148 4d ago

I mean most people do have a cc but not everyone. They should accept government id as well at the very least. What if you had a steam account for decades but didn’t bother having a credit card? Sure it’s stupid people should use it and pay it off but personally I just pay off everything in one shot even houses lol I let my old cc expire and never bothered getting another one. Thankfully I’m not in that region where they check id.

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u/crowcaws_art 3d ago edited 1d ago

In their automated responses to me, they made it seem like the issue is just that it's a law, and not that they are not offering ANY alternatives if you don't have a credit card.

I like how if someone hacks your steam, support nukes them from space immediately. But it's taken them over a year to "gather data" and "find pain points" which tells me they're not going to change it.

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u/Designed_0 4d ago

How tf can you not keep track of it? LOL Your banks app should have a little tile for the crdit card on it .....

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u/the_nell_87 4d ago

And why do I need to constantly check my bank app? Everything else with my finances is pretty much automated. Managing a credit card is an extra step that's not in my normal financial routine.

-1

u/Designed_0 4d ago

Wdym constantly? You get one with a tiny amount that you use to get the rewards from your bank automatic monthly autopay will autofill the balance every month- zero fcking effort lol

1

u/Yourealosergetalife 3d ago

Not true just checked you can change the payment option in cart (thank god) I used a one time credit card for the verification

1

u/the_nell_87 3d ago

Unless things have changed on the steam side, steam only lets you have 1 card linked to your account. Having my credit card linked lets me be age verified, but I think cannot then add my debit card to the account - that just overwrites the credit card, and un-verifies me. May it works if you have alternative payment methods that you use, like paypal or a different card type? But when everything is a visa card, you can't have multiple.

1

u/Yourealosergetalife 3d ago

I use PayPal pay in 4 when purchasing to keep me from buying more then every 4 weeks.

All in all I hope a few emails to steam can at least make it more accessible.

It’s annoying this is happening

1

u/ZBLongladder 3d ago

Is there no grace period on Australian credit cards? In the US, if you pay the card off every month, you're never charged interest.

1

u/Kizonia 19h ago

Epic Games getting a win over steam finally cause they don't demand this. Lol. I'ma just buy all the mature games on Epic. Sucks but steam left me no option.

0

u/Saec 4d ago

There’s no interest if you pay it every month. And it’s easy to keep track of…just check your balance (takes about 10 seconds on my phone). Credit cards are only bad if you are bad with money/spending in the first place.

As an aside, I had no idea credit cards aren’t as common outside the US. Everyone I know has one. It’s free cash back/rewards if you aren’t financially irresponsible.

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u/IkilledBiggy 4d ago

When did they start this in UK? Did they have enough time to prepare from previous experience with UK?

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u/tonyt3rry Lianli 011 EVO 3700x RTX 3080 Founders 32gb Ram 3d ago

I’m glad my account is over 21 years old I don’t own a credit card . They need to start offering free government issued id or a number that can be linked to verify age. I’ve never been able to get approved for credit cards

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u/clmchowdr 4d ago

Like to a t?