[Avodah] Credit cards and kinyonim

Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org
Fri Jun 14 08:02:46 PDT 2019


On Thu, Jun 13, 2019 at 06:31:50AM +0300, Marty Bluke wrote:
: I am struggling as to how to fit in credit card purchases into a halachik
: framework. The question is when I buy something with a credit card what is
: the kinyan?
: 
: Everyone agrees that kesef, money, does not work to acquire metaltlim so
: even if a credit card is kesef it shouldn't work...

On Thu, Jun 13, 2019 at 08:51:33AM -0400, Saul Guberman wrote:
: The kinyan can be when you take the goods with you or are delivered into
: your possession.  Not sure how that would work for intangibles like apps,
: music and the like.

Not "can be", that is when the qinyan is made.

Mese'oraisa, moving the money was the qinyan.

However, Chazal saw that if the money changed hands first, and the seller
still had physical control of the cheftza, he could damage something
that was the buyers. So, they changed the rules.

I don't know their mechanics for doing so: hefqer beis din hefqer or the
CM version of minhag mevatel halakhah -- that when it comes to money,
what both parties agree to or even implicitly agree to matters more than
default halakhah.

Which is the general ruberic under which one of RMBluke's other points
fall:
: However, if we go with situmta then basically we can ask why does the Torah
: have this elaborate set of kinyonim and so much Torah is devoted to them
: when they are basically irrelevant and have been superseded by a man made
: system?

You can ask that about situmta and minhag mevatel halakhah in general.

Why are there dinei mamonos (excluding kenas and ribbis, which are in YD
rather than CM) if the expectations of both parties can trump them anyway?

Good question even without bring up credit cards.

Then at 04:09:46PM +0300, R Marty Bluke replied:
: That would mean that internet purchases don't really happen until you get
: the actual goods. ...

Credit cards do add another complication. The money transfer isn't final.
You have so many days to call your company and question the charges.

So if the qinyan were at the transfer of money, would it be assur to
challenge the bill until after you return the lemon you bought?

:               ... Not the way it is generally looked at

But that brings us back to situmta, and minhag mevatel halakhah. No?

I think you have to consider it, but you said you didn't want to.

Maybe we need to start with "Why CM if it's only a default that is almost
always overridden?" and then consider the situmta argument viable here.

I think there are two things I picked up from AhS CM:

1- The meta-issues. In other words, by seeing how one set of rules are
adjudicated, you get some feel for how our set of expectations should
be interepreted.

2- Dinei mamonos tells us something about the ideal society's relationship
to money. That's not our context, so as halakhah it doesn't often apply.
Perhaps only where these is no expectation, or international business where
each party has different norms (and there is no international trade norm).

But it says what ideal BD should err on the side of, and on an aggadic
level, what we individuals should be thinking about our (?) money vs
communal money vs honesty in business, vs...

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Here is the test to find whether your mission
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   on Earth is finished:
Author: Widen Your Tent      if you're alive, it isn't.
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                      - Richard Bach


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