都是信用卡惹的禍

你有信用卡嗎？你用它獲得過優惠或積分嗎？當你為積分換購和贈送的旅客里程而開心不已、激動萬分時，你其實已經掉入了“誘你花錢如流水”的陷阱。你是否曾經疑惑：自己明明自制力很強，為何花錢卻總是超出預算？你是否也曾納悶：自己一直都能按時還清賬單，為何還是陷入了“月光族”的境地？其實，一切都是信用卡惹的禍。

There is some nuance1） to the argument for never using a credit card again， but this line， from a New York Times article last fall， is a fair， if reductive， distillation2） of it： “In certain contexts， people were willing to pay up to twice as much for the same item when paying with a credit card instead of cash.” People using the same nation’s dollars， buying the same products， under the same experimental conditions， found it acceptable to part with3） twice as much money if they used a credit card instead of cash. Twice as much.

The country surely has a problem with credit-card debt， which， per capita， increased 1，500% between 1980 and 2010. That’s what most people assume to be the issue with using a credit card. But their other damaging quality—one that applies even to people who pay all their bills on time—is their ability to anesthetize4） the pain of a transaction by delaying payment.

Credit cards effectively give people interest-free loans （for those who pay their bills on time）， which in part explains why people would pay extra to use them. But the amount of overspending they induce more than eats up any financial gain from an interest-free loan. Essentially， using a credit card means agreeing to pay a hefty tax to make transactions seem less painful. No matter how much rationalizing one tries to do—“But I get so many frequent-flier miles from my card！”; “But I can always pay my bill！”—the overspending induced by a credit card will outweigh its perks5）.

Consumers fancy themselves immune to this financial anesthesia. But study after study has documented credit cards’ ability to get people to spend more than they otherwise would， even when cash， credit， and debit6） were randomly assigned to experimental subjects： Credit cards make people more likely to forget how much they spent on something. They make frugal people spend recklessly. They make people willing to spend a lot more on one-off7） purchases. And large credit limits promote the illusion that daily purchases are inconsequential8）.

A seminal 2001 study by Drazen Prelec and Duncan Simester titled “Always Leave Home Without It” firmly established a “credit card premium9）” that arises under certain circumstances. That premium was identified decades earlier， by Richard Feinberg， a professor of consumer behavior at Purdue University， in a 1986 study. Feinberg’s experiments suggested that simply seeing a credit-card logo was enough to make people willing to spend more money on a product.

Prelec and Simester’s findings downplayed the importance of logos， but further solidified the theory that credit cards extract more money from people than cash in identical circumstances. The two researchers found that their Boston-based experimental subjects were willing to pay strikingly different amounts of money on tickets to a Celtics10） game， depending on their method of payment. Those paying with cash found roughly $30 to be a reasonable price， while those paying with credit on average were satisfied with $60. This experiment suggests that the premium is largest and most dangerous when people are making one-off purchases or buying things with uncertain value.

“Twice as much” is a finding so outlandish that many will consider themselves exempt from credit cards’ dark magic—in fact， even the people who have rigorously studied it themselves use credit cards. Prelec told The New York Times last year that he uses one occasionally—only to book travel or make big purchases， which， he claims， doesn’t violate the recommendations of his own research. The University of Maryland’s Joydeep Srivastava， the author of another study scrutinizing plastic11）， uses one too. “Mostly because my credit card is giving me lots of miles，” he explained to The Times.

There are without a doubt certain circumstances under which using a credit card is a good idea. If you need a cheap line of credit12） before a paycheck comes （and you’re absolutely sure you can pay off the bill）， use a credit card. If you need to build good credit in order to get a loan， use a credit card. And if you have determined that a credit card’s perks make absolute total sense for you personally， use that credit card. （For example， one of my colleagues， an avid magazine reader， uses a credit card that gets her significant discounts on more than one of her subscriptions. Miles and cash-back programs， though， are often too stingy13） to justify risking the credit-card premium.）

But surely not all of the 26.2 billion U.S. transactions that credit cards are responsible for annually fall under those three categories of exceptions. In the U.S.， where individuals hold 3.7 credit cards on average， they remain the predominant plastic means of payment， accounting for a little more than half of consumer payments made in the U.S. by value. （It’s likely that cards owe part of their current popularity to the fact that they’re the best way to buy things online—but it seems wiser to link your Amazon account to debit， not credit.）

So if academics have been so clear about the perils of credit cards， what have they proposed to mitigate14） the damage？ The solutions that are currently out there range from the obviously quixotic15） to the hilariously desperate. It’s unclear whether the advice to freeze your credit card in an ice cube and hold off on a purchase until it thaws was offered sarcastically by the behavioral economist Dan Ariely; in any case， his advice has popped up earnestly in more than one discussion of budgeting. The results of a 2002 study Ariely authored underline the value of self-imposed spending rules—but Americans don’t have a great track record imposing things on themselves.

There’s another crop of potential solutions that doesn’t depend on consumers’ discipline. Because a broad push for financial-literacy education hasn’t done all that much， academics have become interested in tweaking the experience of swiping16） a credit card. Perhaps a light-colored card that turns darker as you approach your credit limit would work， they’ve suggested. Or what about texting people reminders to be frugal？ A study published last year found that printing someone’s credit-card balance on all of their receipts could reduce expenditures by as much as 10 percent.

However， changes like these would require either the cooperation of credit-card companies （not likely） or a concerted effort by the federal government （perhaps even less likely）. A Mastercard pilot program in Turkey with cards that display account balance is a potential bright spot， but it hasn’t spread anywhere else， and it’s only available for debit cards.

Without the help of the government or credit-card companies， the responsibility falls to individuals. A rational starting place would be to keep using a credit card and make a note of every transaction for a month. Then， do the same with debit， and see if there’s a difference. The answer isn’t necessarily to cut credit cards out of one’s financial diet entirely， but it’s possible to continue building a good credit score and still kick the daily habit.

決不再用信用卡的理由有其微妙之處，但去年秋天《紐約時報》上的這句話（雖略顯簡單化）卻對此進行了很好的概括：“在某些情況下，當人們用信用卡而非現金支付時，他們愿意為同樣的東西付出高達兩倍的價錢?！碑斎藗冊谙嗤膶嶒灄l件下，使用同一個國家的貨幣，購買同樣的產品，如果他們用的是信用卡而非現金，那他們可以接受付出兩倍的價錢。兩倍。

美國確實面臨著信用卡債務問題。在1980年到2010年之間，美國人均信用卡債務增長了1500%。大多數人認為，這就是使用信用卡所導致的問題。但是，信用卡的另一個極具破壞性的特點卻是它能通過延期付款來讓人感覺不到交易帶來的痛苦。這一點甚至也適用于那些按時償還所有賬單的人。

（對于那些按時支付賬單的人而言）信用卡實際上是給人們提供了免息貸款，這在某種程度上解釋了人們為何使用信用卡，哪怕會花更多的錢。但是，免息貸款所帶來的任何財務上的好處都被信用卡所導致的超支消費金額吞噬了。其實，使用信用卡意味著同意支付高額稅款，以使交易顯得不那么痛苦。無論一個人試圖找出多少理由（如“可是我通過信用卡得到了那么多常旅客里程！”“可是我一直能還清賬單！”），信用卡所導致的超支都將超過其帶來的好處。

消費者們自以為可以不受這種財務上的麻醉的影響。但一項又一項的研究證明，即便是將現金、信用卡和借記卡隨機發放給受試者，也是信用卡能讓人花更多的錢：信用卡會讓人們更容易忘記他們在某件東西上花了多少錢。信用卡讓節儉的人不管不顧地花錢，讓人們愿意在一次性開支上花更多的錢。而較高的信用額度則讓人們產生錯覺，覺得日常購物沒什么大不了的。

德拉岑·普雷萊克和鄧肯·西梅斯特于2001年進行了一項名為“出門時千萬別帶它”的開創性研究，該研究確鑿地證明在某些情況下會出現“信用卡加價”。這種加價現象早在幾十年前就被發現了，是由普渡大學的消費者行為學教授理查德·范伯格在1986年的一項研究中發現的。范伯格的實驗表明，僅僅是看到信用卡的標志就足以使人們愿意在某件產品上花更多的錢。

普雷萊克和西梅斯特的研究結果淡化了信用卡標志的重要性，但卻進一步證實了如下理論：在同等情況下，與現金相比，信用卡能讓人掏更多的錢。兩位研究者發現，根據支付方式的不同，波士頓的受試者愿意為一場凱爾特人隊的球賽所花的門票錢也大相徑庭。用現金支付的受試者認為合理的價格為大約30美元，而用信用卡支付的受試者大體都接受60美元的價格。這項實驗表明，當人們進行一次性購物或者購買價值不確定的東西時，加價的幅度最大，也最有危險性。

“花兩倍的錢”這一調查結果太令人難以接受，很多人會認為自己不會受信用卡黑暗魔法的操控——但事實上，即便是那些仔細研究過信用卡的人也用信用卡。普雷萊克去年告訴《紐約時報》，他偶爾使用信用卡，只用它來預訂旅行或購買大額物品，他聲稱這并不違背他在自己研究中提出的建議。馬里蘭大學的喬伊迪普·斯里瓦斯塔瓦主持了另一項深入剖析信用卡的研究，他也用信用卡。“主要是因為我的信用卡給我攢了很多里程?！彼颉都~約時報》解釋道。

毫無疑問，在某些情況下，使用信用卡是個好主意。你如果在發工資之前需要費用低的貸款（而且你非常確定自己能償還賬單），就用信用卡。你如果需要建立良好的信用來獲得貸款，就用信用卡。你如果確定信用卡帶來的好處對你個人而言非常有意義，就用信用卡。（例如，我的一位同事酷愛閱讀雜志，她用的那張信用卡就能給她訂閱的好幾份雜志打很高的折扣。然而，里程和返現計劃往往過于小氣，犯不著為這些冒信用卡加價的風險。）

美國每年有262億美元的信用卡交易額，但顯然，這些交易并非全部屬于上述三種例外情況。在美國，平均每人持有3.7張信用卡。信用卡仍然是“塑料卡”支付的主要方式。而按價值計算，這占到了美國境內消費額的一半還多一點。（目前銀行卡流行的部分原因可能在于其是網上購物的最佳支付方式。但更明智的做法似乎是將你的亞馬遜賬戶與借記卡綁定，而非與信用卡綁定。）

既然學術界已經如此清楚信用卡都有什么危害，那他們都提出了哪些建議來緩解這些危害呢？目前已有的解決方案既包括明顯不切實際的辦法，也包括可笑的絕望之舉。行為經濟學家丹·艾瑞里曾建議把信用卡凍在冰塊內，推遲購物，直到冰塊融化。我們尚不清楚他給出這樣的建議是否有嘲諷之意，但無論怎樣，在關于精打細算的多次討論中，人們都會認真地提及他的建議。艾瑞里于2002年發起了一項研究，研究結果強調了人們為自己強行設定開支規則的重要性。但在給自己強加規則方面，美國民眾的記錄可不怎么樣。

還有一些潛在的解決方案并不依賴于消費者的自律。鑒于在廣泛推動財務掃盲教育方面并未取得多大成就，學術界又開始熱衷于調整信用卡的刷卡體驗。他們提議，如果一張淺色的信用卡在你即將達到信用額度時顏色變深，或許能起作用。或者給人們發短信，提醒大家節儉？去年發表的一項研究發現，在所有的收據上印上信用卡的剩余額度能減少人們多達10%的支出。

然而，此類變動要么需要信用卡公司的合作（這不可能），要么需要聯邦政府通力協作（或許更不可能）。土耳其開展了一項萬事達卡的試點計劃，即銀行卡上可以顯示賬戶剩余額度。該計劃可能是個亮點，但這種做法并未普及到其他地方，而且它只適用于借記卡。

得不到政府或信用卡公司的幫助，責任就落在了個人身上。合理的起點是持續使用信用卡，記下一個月內的每筆交易。然后，以同樣的方式使用借記卡，看看是否存在差別。答案并不一定是要將信用卡完全排除出個人的財務選項，但我們有可能在繼續建立良好信用記錄的同時改掉日常的習慣。

1. nuance [?nju??ns] n. （聲音、感受、外貌或意義的）細微差別;微妙之處

2. distillation [?d?st??le??（?）n] n. 精華

3. part with：花掉

4. anesthetize [??ni?sθ?ta?z] vt. 麻醉;使失去感覺

5. perk [p??（r）k] n. 特殊待遇;額外所得

6. debit [?deb?t] n. （銀行賬戶的）借記，借入

7. one-off：一次性的

8. inconsequential [?n?k?ns??kwen?（?）l] adj. 不重要的;微不足道的

9. premium [?pri?mi?m] n. 額外費用;加付款;加價

10. Celtics：波士頓凱爾特人隊，美國國家籃球協會中的一支球隊

11. plastic [?pl?st?k] n. （塑料制）信用卡

12. line of credit：貸放（或賒購的）最高限額

13. stingy [?st?nd?i] adj. 吝嗇的;小氣的

14. mitigate：請參見37頁注釋4。

15. quixotic [kw?k?s?t?k] adj. 幻想的;不切實際的

16. swipe [swa?p] vt. 刷（信用卡等）