Once again we see how easy it is for corporate America to control the media with ease. This time it is Sears/Kmart and their new Christmas club. Today I was watching the local news, something I try to avoid, and they had a 2 minute story on this subject. Basically here is the deal, you “save” your money by buying a gift card for Sears/Kmart and they are so nice that they will give you a 3% bonus.
It does not really mention that you MUST now spend all of that money only with Sears/Kmart and their sister companies. They promoted it with multiple interviews and such with no opinion other than “DO IT NOW, or else you are stupid” But to me I see this as a very dumb gimic, and worse it could harm people by locking them into buying from these companies. They don’t price match here, and they don’t give refunds from the money “saved” in this account, so if there is a better price somewhere else you are stuck. If you need your money for an emergency you are stuck. If you lose the card you are stuck, if you forget about it they keep the extra money and you are stuck.
Now I don’t fault Sears/Kmart for doing this. For them it makes money, and in these times they need to find every way to make money, heck if I was them I would be loving this program, they get to borrow millions of dollars just when they need it, and they get locked in customers allowing them to predict their holiday sales with ease. On top of that they get all of this nice media attention. Totally brilliant on their part.
I DO fault the local media, trying to fill their “News” broadcast with junk like this, with no couterpoint, and promoting it as the sencable thing to do. They were saying that this card was better than using a back, due to the 3% bonus. I also did a quick google search and found ton’s of blogs jumping on the band wagon. Totally crazy.
It would be better to just put cash in a piggy bank and wait for Christmas, or even sock it away in some sort of Auto Savings plan at your local bank. You need to keep your money free, free to be spent where you can get the best deal, and free to be used when you need it.
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