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Wells Fargo Bans Cryptocurrency Purchases On Its Credit Cards (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Wells Fargo customers hoping to use their credit cards to buy Bitcoin will have to look elsewhere. While putting a prohibition on such cryptocurrency purchases for now, Wells Fargo "will continue to evaluate the issue as the market evolves," Shelley Miller, a spokeswoman, said in an emailed statement. Wells Fargo joins Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, which limited cryptocurrency purchases on their credit cards in February, citing market volatility and credit risks. Lenders have said they're worried they'd be left on the hook if a borrower lost money on a digital currency bet and couldn't repay. A study conducted by LendEDU last year found that roughly 18 percent of Bitcoin investors used a credit card to fund the purchases. Of those, 22 percent couldn't pay off their balance after buying the digital coin.
But I can buy Dollars, or Pounds, or Euro's, or Yen with a credit card...I can even buy Beanie Babies and Tulips.
Maybe Wells Farge should have LOWERed those people's credit balance instead of over-extending their credit limit.
I don't want a private company telling me what I can or cannot buy with my money.
If you're using a credit card, it's not your money.
Wow you are delusional. You think they are acting like "law enforcement" and not just simply identifying business risks and mitigating them? There are a ton of other things that payment cards don't allow but because this one is bitcoin you all the sudden think they are thugs? How about this: if you don't like it, don't use them. They don't want you to. If you want to use someone else's service and cash you have to play by their rules. Use your own cash if you want to make your own rules.
If 22% of TV purchasers defaulted, leaving Wells Fargo to pay the bill, you bet your ass Wells Fargo would stop paying for TVs.
The problem is people think they can later resell the Bitcoins in order to pay back Wells Fargo, so they buy more than they can afford to pay back from the paycheck. When Bitcoin prices drop to half of what they were a few months earlier, people can't pay the bill. People don't buy TVs with the thought they can resell it later and thereby pay off the debt.
Didn't anyone read about the tulips?
The tulips were zero sum. For every buyer, there was a seller. For every loser there was a winner.
Cryptocurrencies are different because much of the money is drained out of the system to pay for power. It is negative sum, with more (or bigger) losers than winners.
The same laws that allow you to determine what you do with your money. It is THEIR money, they get to choose what they do with it not you. A credit card is in effect you asking them for an unsecured loan which they are well within their rights to refuse.