Gaming Credit

So, Google is ending their download to own / download to rent program. They had originally chosen to refund everyone’s monies via credit to Google Checkout, Google’s online shopping card/payment system. That didn’t make very many people happy, so Google then went ahead and refund the whole purchases to the credit cards they were used with, and let people keep the Google checkout credits. Basically, a company doing something kinda nifty. That’s not the interesting story here, though.

Here is the interesting story. Basically, a bunch of FatWallet folks were using Google Video in order to make extremely small (pennies, basically) monthly charges in order to keep credit cards with 0% balance transfers going. (These cards required a very minimal monthly use to keep the 0% on transfers, typically $50 worth of charges or two separate charges.)

Well, since Google has refunded these monies and the people made only those single Google-based purchases during some months, they are now getting nailed with huge back finance charges. One person in the thread even mentions having a $62K balance he suddenly has to pay on.

Talk about trying to game the system and getting bit. Wow.

($62K in credit card debt?!? That’s another wow.)

UPDATE: It looks like some of these people are actually pulling out massive cash advances on one card, transferring the balance to this one, then gaming it so they can make interest in a high-yield savings account on the cash advance while paying less than that in interest in the credit card balance. Sounds like this could be a good game, but it sounds a bit risky to me.

UPDATE2: Er… Maybe not. I think most of these folks are just using the balance transfers to pay off other balances. Quotes of triple mortgages, $30K in credit card debt, etc.