Card Goddess Denied by Bank

Contractual Agreements run in only one direction in Taiwan: against the little guy. The Card Goddess, a Taiwanese woman who gamed the credit card rewards system to make a nice living for herself, got shut down by the banks this week. Here's why I love Taiwanese: they can spot the angle in any situation:

Dubbed the "goddess of cards" by the local Chinese-language media, Yang Hui-ju (楊蕙如), a citizen of Taitung City and a MBA degree holder from the University of Queensland, Australia, stumbled upon the money-making scheme accidentally while surfing the Internet at home.

According to Yang, Eastern Home Shopping Network (東森得易購), the nation's largest television shopping service provider, allowed their members to purchase vouchers worth NT$20,000 (US$627.35) by paying only NT$19,000 when using a credit card.

What caught her eye was that, if the vouchers are not used after one year, Eastern Home Shopping will redeem them by presenting each customer with a check worth NT$20,000, a move that guarantees customers a five-percent return ratio, higher than the interest rate offered on deposits.

Read more; it's a great story.

[Taiwan]