Give credit to under 16's

AllanP · Give credit to under 16's

LLoyd's TSB along with other unnamed banks have been offering and granting credit cards to the under 16's.
One such 14 year old has been buying Viagra, ciggy's and viewing porn sites using his card.
According to the "media", when the banks were questioned it was implied that it was "up to the parents" to ensure that the said youth was using his credit card wisely.
Have these banks in question no scruples at all?

Better still, isn't this exploitation to the point of being outside the law?
What next? I can only guess at.

antibarbie

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/...l=/money/2008/06/30/cnvisa130.xml

I'll think you'll find that they were given DEBIT cards not credit cards. There is a vast difference between the two

Merak

As AB says, it's debit rather than credit cards. I have no problem with the theory of it - kids when they come of age will be using a lot of plastic, so a bit of mentoring before being let loose on their own isn't a bad idea. But I think it should be at parents request rather than the bank just handing them out. As most of us probably know, spending via a card isn't quite the same as handing over hard cash, so it's easy to get carried away and I can see unsupervised kids emptying their accounts before the realisation of what they've done, hits them.

Summer_08

I don't think under 16's need a debit card tbh

It's not as if they have much money to spend - unless their parents are offloading oodles of pocket money upon them, In which case...I am available for adoption.....

antibarbie