Blogging for Change

A quirky thing about credit card commercials

by Kim McGrigg on
1/4/2011
in Personal Finance , Using Credit

Watch any credit card commercial and you will see happy consumers confidently and conveniently swiping their credit cards to pay for purchases with the card issuer's logo prominently displayed on the card the entire time.  However, if the cameras kept rolling, you would see that those consumers would be out of luck.  

In order to swipe your card to pay for a purchase, you have to hold the card upside down.  That's because the magnetic stripe is on the top of the card, not on the bottom. 

I'm sure there must be a really great reason why credit card issuers don't just move the stripe to the bottom of the card so that their products are always shown in the very best light.  If you know what it is, please let me know!

Kim McGrigg is the former Manager of Community and Media Relations for MMI.

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