andrel wrote:
> Sounds like big brother but works well. (Too 
> well if you are a jewish citizen in the German occupied Netherlands in 
> 1940-1945)

Yeah. Works great, until it doesn't. :-) We still have enough problems here 
(discrimination problems, illegal immigrant problems, etc) that we still 
have it clear in national memory why you can't really trust the government 
to stick up for you or obey its own laws.  Also perhaps because we have a 
whole crapload of different jurisdictions, legally speaking.

We don't really have to tell anyone where we're going. If the landlord 
doesn't ask, nobody cares.

In China not too many decades ago, you had to get permission from your boss 
to change jobs, houses, or get married, so I think there's a full scale out 
there.

> Needing a certain income to get one 

That's up to the bank that's lending you the money. It's a *credit* card, 
after all. You don't need anything to get a debit card.

> and sometimes not being allowed to 
> go below zero on the account that is coupled to it might be one 
> difference. 

Credit cards aren't coupled to accounts with money in them. Those are debit 
cards here.  (I.e., you have a credit card account, but it's a credit 
account, so there's no money in the account.)

> Perhaps even the fact that it is coupled to a specific bank 
> account and issued by that bank. 

We have that here, yes. Some specific bank has to loan you the money.

> We have a maximum amount we can charge 
> the card for per month, irrespective of the balance on your account 

Well, these are all rules determined by the bank giving you the card. 
There's a maximum amount of money they'll loan you before they start 
declining the card, but there's no way they can just (for example) take 
money out of your bank account if you don't pay them back. They'd actually 
have to get the government to take your money and pay them.

> I had more than enough on my account but could not reach it. 

Yes, it sounds more like you're describing a debit card or an ATM card here. 
(What Visa likes to call a "check card" here, because it's effectively like 
writing a check.)

A credit card here actually gives you money you don't have, just like 
getting a loan for a house.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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