Where's downside for credit cards?

I don't understand the popularity of debit cards ("The debit dilemma," Feb. 4 ). We use only credit cards and enjoy the float. We pay them off monthly and incur no interest charges. We carry cards that have high interest and no fixed fees. Where is the downside?

Richard Sachs
Chelmsford

Interesting article on debit purchase, signatures, and PINs. What I can't figure out is why stores seem to want to be sneaky about it. If one method of purchase is cheaper for them, why not let the consumer decide? I have much more respect for a merchant that tells me they prefer I use a PIN because it helps keep costs down than one who deceptively tries to steer me to use one solution over the other. Good service, customer relationships, and a well-trained sales staff can do a lot more for the bottom line than deception.

Dave Tuttle
Norwood

As a credit card user (I refused my bank's offer of a debit MasterCard "feature" on my ATM card), what I would like to know is why don't all these banks and credit card companies move to the PIN system instead of the antiquated signature system? Clerks rarely look at my signature and I could sign with an X and they would let the sale go through. It would seem to me that the angst over stolen credit card numbers would be much less if you had to enter a changeable PIN for each transaction, credit or debit.

Gary Webster
Acton

Good piece about improving direct-mail marketing ("Special delivery," Feb. 5 ). I tried unsuccessfully to start a business that would enable consumers to directly "speak" via the Web to the mailers and express their individual preferences. The marketing world was dead-set against it. Consumers are a fickle lot, with wants and expectations all over the map. From my experience, I still believe there is room to allow consumers a voice in this process rather than the mailers sneaking around behind our backs, surreptitiously collecting and assembling the data detritus of our lives and then guessing which bucket we fit into. If the marketing folks weren't so stubborn, we wouldn't be on such a collision track with privacy expectations.

David Eddy
Needham

The foreclosure record you predicted was predictable ("Filings to foreclose," Feb. 7 ). In fact, UCLA geophysicist Didier Sornette predicted a housing bust based on exponential price increases in about 20 markets, which would result in a buyer's market and foreclosures. Massachusetts had the steepest rising curve. Anyone could have predicted a year or two ago what Kimberly Blanton described.

Clayton Hallmark
Cleveland

Just because Steve Bailey doesn't watch, or apparently understand, a television show that others have told him is "underground" or representative of a "sub culture" or "counterculture" does not mean that he has any right to label all of the viewers "stoners" ("Laughing to the bank," Feb. 2 ). Ask just about any MIT student or any Harvard engineering student about "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" and chances are they have heard of it, if they aren't already a fan.

Furthermore, no one is calling the Boston cops and the firefighters "losers," other than you. Those who are laughing know that the butt of the joke rests squarely on the politicians and others in charge of commanding such an uproar, including yourself, for continuing to judge and label ("alleged artists") and get outraged over an act of creative advertising that was poorly planned.

If anyone is to blame for creating panic or trying to scare people or create unrest, it's people like Steve Bailey , who are too flustered to even try to put themselves into someone else's shoes and figure out the situation -- unless, of course, you do understand perfectly well and are purposefully fueling this fire precisely to obtain those ends and somehow further your name, which would be even more sad.

Matt Bennett
Somerdale, N.J.

I read with interest Bruce Mohl's article on the Admit One ticket scalping case ("Reseller argues ticket markups comply with law," Feb. 1). I am absolutely appalled that these agencies get away with "legalized scalping." To me, the biggest offender is StubHub , which sometimes resells tickets for two or three times their face value. Worst of all, they advertise on the Red Sox radio broadcasts. This makes it seem that the Red Sox are supporting what they do. For the average fan, many of us have given up going to see the Red Sox because it's impossible to get tickets or you have to pay outrageous markup prices. I would rather spend the money to go to Lowell , Portland, Maine, or Manchester, N.H., to see baseball at affordable prices.

Terry Dempsey
Moultonborough, N.H.

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