You mean Sears FORCES you to use their credit card and FORCES you to carry a balance?
No? Didn't think so.
I said fraud, not extortion. Sears has for at least 50 years had the habit of extending credit with such low minimum payments that the final payoff takes years and costs many times the original purchase price. Anyone competent to work out his own amortization schedule (e.g., I who have a math PhD) can ignore the minimum payments. Less wary consumers end up paying through the nose.
When I had a Sears card, I noted that they responded to any excess payment by requesting a minimum payment of $0 for a few months, until the interest charges wiped out the principal payment. When my dad was a teenager, he helped a working class neighbor trying to reorder his finances, and discovered that he had paid $2,000 for a $200 lawn mower, and still had an unpaid balance.
This is on the fine line between caveat emptor and outright fraud, but I disapprove and show it by taking my business elsewhere.
All immoral behaviour is voluntary.
People who volutarily hire prostitutes do so voluntarily, but they would not have done it were the prostitutes not available.