As I write, New Year’s eve merrymaking is on at full throttle — and in today’s culture, there can be no celebration without shopping. Shop till you drop, as the tag line says, with enticements galore, each more irresistible than the other. Book a flat by December end, and you can have a free car thrown in. Buy jewellery worth just Rs 2,500, and you can win 5 kg gold. “Hurry, offer valid only till Sunday!” Buy a car and get another free (no kidding — King Khan himself, promoting ‘Dus lakh ka chamatkar, daily one free car’).

And so it goes. Once upon a time, if one didn’t have the money to shop for fancy stuff, one sighed and got on with life. No longer, thanks to plastic money, also known as credit cards. With cash no longer a constraint, those ads beckon oh so beguilingly. Buy now, pay later — except that it is not always that simple. For one thing, not many credit card owners are aware of the rate of interest that they get charged (I checked through a random sampling, covering some of the most highly qualified academics and professionals) so the buyer ends up paying Rs 11,350 for the  neoteric electronic gadget against the publicized price of Rs 9,990.

That’s only one aspect of the deal. There are the credit card hassles that are now being increasingly reported in the media  — about how the card holder was subject to goonda tactics in the name of ‘collecting dues’, sometimes even when the card holder owed nothing.

In one case that I have been following for nearly two years now, a leading nationalised bank (which boasts of  having the “largest number of ATMs in India” and being “among the top 100 banks in the world”, with “more customers than the population of Australia” as per its ads and hoardings) has dragged its feet over reversing some charges that it had no business to impose in the first place, and in sheer disgust, plus the difficulty of taking time off from a demanding professional life, this customer has given up the fight — and enriched the bank to the tune of a considerable sum that has been collected illegally.

Phone calls to the number given on the bill, get her only a call centre where someone makes polite noises and promises to “look into it” (or directs her to another person or number); even registered letters being no response or acknowledgement.

This is not an isolated case. How many among the tens of thousands of credit card holders can manage to file a complaint before the consumer fora and follow it up, taking time off from work to attend hearings? Only the more shocking cases make it to the media, the rest fizzle out, with the victims deciding that a couple of thousands (or more) is not worth spending precious work time over.

The ‘sale’ noose

Festival time is also when ‘sales’ proliferate, offering attractive discounts, on saris, shirts, durable goods, home decoration artifacts (curtain and furnishing material, electrical gadgets and appliances). Not many buyers know that a buyer’s rights are diluted when something is purchased in a sale at discounted prices — even if one has a receipt, discounted goods are supposed to be bought under the “buyer beware” clause, which means that the buyer is expected to examine the goods and satisfy himself/herself about the quality of the item before paying up.

Complaints are usually not entertained, in the event of the goods turning out to be faulty or damaged. This applies to most sale offers, but due to the equation of buying frenzy during year-end celebration time (Diwali, Christmas, New Year) this is when most buyers realise that the party is over, shortly after they take home their purchases.

Merrymaking is also equated with partying, eating out, and  having drinks. And that gives those who are corrupt among law enforcers, to make money as part of their own “festival time merrymaking” — one Bangalorean who drove home late at night after a party says the police stopped his car along M G Road and insisted on charging him for drunken driving.

This citizen says he was not drunk and had violated no rules but there was no arguing with a couple of determined policemen on the prowl, out to line their pockets. “How much money do you have?” the minions of the law demanded to know, as an alternative to hauling this citizen to court with a chalan for “disorderly driving”. The party for this victim got over even before he returned home.

Today’s consumerist culture is such that anyone who does not “buy, buy and buy” is seen as pitiably deprived.

Ads reinforce this consumerist lifestyle, and the media thrive on ad revenues — monetary spending is the overarching criterion,  whether it is evaluating lifestyles or pleasing the family or ‘giving one’s guests a good time’.

And thanks to the growth of electronic media like television, even the illiterate poor get inveigled, while the middle classes aim for the profligate consumption patterns of those higher up on the economic ladder, in the belief that happiness lies in spending.

The irony in all this is that the so-called developed world (the US in particular) which taught us this lifestyle in the name of modernity, is now turning back and away, in search of more viable alternatives. Use of credit cards in the US actually fell in the last quarter of the year, with Americans becoming conscious of the long term hazards of living beyond one’s means.

All that credit has to be met somehow, at some time, and if an offer (discount, or purchase clause, or card rule) sounds too good to be true, it is. Too good to be true, I mean. After all, no one is in business to give away stuff, or make a loss, whether it is selling stuff or offering credit cards or durable goods.

It may be the season of altruism but those offers, if you have noticed (many haven’t, as attested by the kinds and numbers of complaints that I get, from hapless readers who discover they have been taken for a ride) always say “Conditions apply”. Those two vital words are always, but always, in tiny, small print, tucked away at the bottom of the ad, in an unobtrusive corner.

The more sophisticated our lifestyles become, the more we need to be aware of the pitfalls and treacherous hidden costs. There are, alas, no ads that tell you this.

THE FINE PRINT

* Do read ALL the small print.
* Do ask questions, especially if it says "0 interest" etc.
* Do get clarifications preferably in writing, to protect yourself.
* Check your statements carefully, item by item. And complain in writing as soon as possible, in case of discrepancies or unauthorised charges.
* Report losses of credit cards immediately.
* Share your experience, especially unpleasant ones, to create awareness. That's the best way of fighting
unethical practices.

(The author is a well-known consumer activist)